Meaning of separate in English

separate

adjective

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/ˈsep.ər.ət/ us

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/ˈsep.ɚ.ət/

existing or happening independently or in a different physical space:

The art department and the music department are in two separate buildings.

I try to keep meat separate from other food in the fridge.

I have my public life and my private life, and as far as possible I try to keep them separate.

Three youths have been shot and killed in separate incidents this month.

More examples

We each have a separate bedroom but share a communal kitchen.
Householders are given four separate receptacles for their rubbish.
The waiter asked if we were all together so I explained that we were two separate parties.
He regarded the north of the country as a separate cultural entity.
The museums work closely together, but are separate legal entities.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Separateness and isolation in space

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Idiom

go your (own) separate ways

separate

verb

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/ˈsep.ər.eɪt/ us

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/ˈsep.ə.reɪt/

separate verb (DIVIDE)

B2 [ I or T ]

to (cause to) divide into parts:

The north and south of the country are separated by a mountain range.

You can get a special device for separating egg whites from yolks.

The top and bottom sections are quite difficult to separate.

More examples

It's sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction in what she says.
In many churches the side aisles are separated from the central aisle by a row of arches.
A narrow band of grass separated the greenhouse from the vegetable garden.
A grille separated the prisoners from their visitors.
I've separated the documents into three piles.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Separating and dividing

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separate verb (MOVE APART)

B2 [ I or T ]

to make people move apart or into different places, or to move apart:

At school they always tried to separate Jane and me because we were troublemakers.

Somehow, in the rush to get out of the building, I got separated from my mother.

Perhaps we should separate now and meet up later.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Isolating and separating

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separate verb (CONSIDER AS DIFFERENT)

[ T ]

to consider two people or things as different or not related:

You can't separate morality from politics.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Separating and dividing

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separate verb (LIQUID)

[ I ]

If a liquid separates, it becomes two different liquids.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Separating and dividing

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separate verb (RELATIONSHIP)

B2 [ I ]

to start to live in a different place from your husband or wife because the relationship has ended:

My parents separated when I was six and divorced a couple of years later.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Relationships: ending & divorce

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(Definition of separate from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

separate | American Dictionary

separate

adjective

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/ˈsep·ər·ət/

existing or happening independently or in a different physical space:

The middle school and the high school are in two separate buildings.

I have my public life and my private life, and as far as possible I try to keep them separate.

separately

adverb us

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/ˈsep·ər·ət·li/

You have to wash dark clothes and white stuff separately.

separate

verb [ I/T ]

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/ˈsep·əˌreɪt/

to cause two or more people or things to stop being with or near each other, or to be positioned between two or more things:

[ T ] A six-foot-high wall separates ticket holders from those hoping to get tickets.

[ T ] Fighting broke out between two hockey players, and it took nearly five minutes to separate them.

If two married people separate, they stop living together as husband and wife, often as a part of a legal arrangement.

(Definition of separate from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

separate | Business English

separate

adjective

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/ˈsepərət/ us

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not together, joined, or connected:

We realised that the best way to progress the project would be to set up a separate company.

We have separate bank accounts.

separate from sth The assets of the fund will be ring-fenced, which means they will be kept separate from the rest of the fund.

separate

verb

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/ˈsepəreɪt/ us

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[ I or T ]

to divide into parts, or cause something to divide into parts:

separate (sth) from sth They oppose the idea of Scotland separating from Britain.

separate sth into sth We separated the workspace into cubicles using screens.

separate a company/business

[ T ]

to consider two people or things as different or not connected:

separate sth from sth These economic decisions cannot be separated from politics.

separate sth and sth I find it difficult to separate home and business.

(Definition of separate from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of separate

separate

The context of production is separated from the household and most significantly, in fact, extraction, production, distribution, and consumption are globalised.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The context of production is separated from the household and extraction, production, distribution and consumption are globalised.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

More examples Fewer examples

In physical health problems there may be a desire to identify a disease entity that can be diagnosed and separated from the sense of self.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Drug use and intimate relationships among women and men : separating specific from general effects in prospective data using structural equation models.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Despite this increase in the number of schemes, social risks were not separated into different trust funds.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Proteins were separated in 12.5 % polyacrylamide gels under reducing conditions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If the female is separated from the male, gene expression is stopped and egg production ceases.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Genes abut one another or are separated by short intergenic sequences.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The different subgenera are clearly separated, and the overall tree topology is consistent regardless of the tree-building method used.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Similar muscle fibres were observed in the present study, but we consider that they represent incompletely separated fibres following digestion.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

She just yelled through the open door that separated the reception area from his office.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A key feature of our approach is that these two aspects are both considered but are also clearly separated.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The latter construction, in contrast, views the possessee as an entity separated from its possessor, and the predicate as applying solely to the possessee.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Research and production were adjacent but strictly separated for security reasons.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If we can show that "knowing" cannot be separated from perceiving, acting, and remembering, then these processes are always linked.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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