↔️ Separated 🧩 Into pieces 🚫 Except for 🌟 Distinct

apart

559 1.0

Become separated into pieces

adverb
/əˈpɑrt/

: en pedazos

The children wanted to see what was inside, so they pulled the box apart carefully.
fall apart
break apart
tear apart

But the difference is the the splitting apart in what sense?

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Examples

And I just gently ease them apart like so.
When the puzzle was complete, he took it apart to start again from scratch.
Just take your hands and break it apart like so.
And then you just peel this apart and then you have this.
So we have to break it apart in both directions.
The aluminum just breaks apart with your fingers like this.
Minutes after the collision, the ship broke apart and sank, pulling many down with it.

Academic text (2013)
The fact of the manual points to the need to take the sculpture apart and reassemble it.

Academic text (2011)
As the old wooden chair began to rot, it started falling apart piece by piece.

Synonyms

separately

vsapart

148 2.1

Each person does it alone rather than together

describes physical breaking into parts rather than individual action

asunder

vsapart

Archaic

14 9.9

In separate pieces after something breaks

is the same meaning but expressed in a different word form

Antonyms

together

∞ 1.0

In the same place or group with other people

Idioms

worlds apart

Informal

9 4.5

People or things that are very different and have nothing important in common

to come apart at the seams

Informal

5 7.2

To fall apart or stop working properly after being stable

poles apart

Informal

1 5.6

Very different from each other in every way

to fall apart like a house of cards

Informal

6.5

Suddenly fail completely because it is weak or badly built

Compounds

taking apart

Offensive

1 8.7

To cut something, often a body, into separate pieces

set-apart

1 6.7

Feeling separate from other people or different from them

How Broken

shattered

1 4.8

apart

559 1.0

damaged

1 1.1

intact

304 3.7

Surface Forms

apart positive

Morphology

apart = part (semi-transparent) = a + part

The idea of becoming 'in parts' is fairly accessible from 'part', but the prefix 'a-' itself is not a familiar productive English prefix for most learners.

Etymology

Apart is built from a- ('to' or 'from') and part ('piece'), like the phrase 'a part'. To take something apart is to move it into its pieces or separate its parts, which is why we use apart for things that are in pieces.