separate

1 /'sepFrit/ adjective

1 things, places, buildings etc that are separate are not joined to each other or touching each other: separate bedrooms | The poor travelled in a separate carriage.

(+ from): Keep the fish separate from the other food.

2 ideas, information, activities etc that are separate are not connected or do not affect each other in any way: two separate problems

(+ from): He tries to keep his professional life completely separate from his private life.

3 different: This word has 3 separate meanings. | She's been warned on three separate occasions that her work is not good enough.

4 go your separate ways

a) to finish a relationship with someone, especially a romantic relationship

b) to start travelling in a different direction from someone you have been travelling with

— separately adverb: They did arrive together, but I think they left separately. 2 verb

1 BE BETWEEN (transitive often passive) if something separates two places or two things, it is between them so that they are not touching each other or connected with each other: The two towns are separated by a river. | Seventeen years had separated them.

2 DIVIDE (I, T) to divide or split into different parts, or layers, or to make something do this: Here's a trick to keep your salad dressing from separating.

(+ from): At this point the satellite separates from its launcher. | separate sth into: It would help if we separated this stuff into three different piles. | separate eggs (=divide the white part from the yellow part)

3 STOP LIVING TOGETHER (I) to start to live apart from your husband, wife or sexual partner: It's the children who suffer when their parents separate.

4 RECOGNIZE DIFFERENCE (T) to recognize that one idea is different from another, and to deal with each idea alone

(+ from): It's not always easy to separate cause from effect.

5 MOVE APART (intransitive transitive) to move apart, or make people move apart

(+ from): We had to separate Philip and Jason because they were talking all the time.

6 MAKE SB/STH DIFFERENT (transitive + from) to be the thing that makes someone or something different from other similar people or things: What is it that you think separates her from the other applicants?

7 separate the men from the boys informal to do something that makes it clear which people are brave or strong and which are not: The climb through the mountains will definitely separate the men from the boys.

8 separate the sheep from the goats also separate the wheat from the chaff to separate the good things from the bad things

separate sth out phrasal verb (I, T) if part of something separates out or is separated out, it becomes separate from the other parts