sort out
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Verb
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Third person singular |
Simple past |
Past participle |
Present participle |
to sort out (third-person singular simple present sorts out, present participle sorting out, simple past and past participle sorted out)
- (transitive) To clarify by reviewing mentally.
- It's a bit confused at the moment, I'll try to sort it out later.
- (transitive) To fix, as a problem.
- The computer won't let me delete that file; could you sort it out?
- (transitive) To organise or separate into groups, as a collection of items, so as to make tidy.
- Could you sort out your wardrobe and put the clothes you no longer use in one pile to give away and another to throw away?
- (transitive) To separate from the remainder of a group; often construed with from.
- We need to sort out the problems we can solve from the ones we can't.
- They've already sorted out the students in group A, so we just need to worry about groups B and C.
- (transitive, British, slang) To attack physically.
- If you do that again, I'll soon sort you out.
[edit] Usage notes
- In senses 1 and 2, the object typically refers to an abstraction: a problem, or a situation, or the like.
- In senses 3 and 4, the object may refer to any sort of collection — a collection of physical objects, or of people, or of abstractions. In sense 4, there is very often a from phrase, characterizing the remainder of the collection.
- In sense 5, the object refers to a person or group of people.
- In all senses, the object may appear before or after the particle out. If the object is particularly short or lexically "light" — as with all personal pronouns — it will usually appear before the particle ("sort it out"), and if it is particularly long or lexically "heavy" — as with a noun phrase with a modifier phrase attached — it will usually appear after it ("sort out the patients with scoliosis"). Intermediate-length objects may appear either before or after ("sort the wheat out", "sort out the wheat").
[edit] Translations
clarify
fix problem
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