Englishfor English speakers
separate
Adjective
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Being separate means that a piece of an object is not connected to or attached to the rest of the object.
This chair was broken into five separate pieces.
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If two objects, ideas, or people are separate from one another, they are not together.
I try to keep my personal life separate from work.
separate
Verb
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To separate something is to take it apart, divide it, or stop it from connecting.
I diced the onions and the carrots, separating them into two piles.
by
Preposition
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near or next to.
The mailbox is by the bus stop.
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at some time before (the given time).
Be back by ten o'clock!
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if something is done by somebody, it is done through their action
The matter was decided by the chairman.
The boat was swamped by the water.
He was protected by his body armour.
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if something is created by somebody, they are the creator, author, etc.
There are many well-known plays by William Shakespeare.
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shows how someone does something
I avoided the guards by moving only when they weren't looking.
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using the rules or logic of.
I sorted the items by category.
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with a change of. In this case, by shows how much something has changed.
Our stock is up by ten percent.
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shows how slowly, or how quickly, someone does something (used in the form "X by X" or "by Xs")
We went through the book page by page.
We crawled forward by inches.
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If you multiply mathx/math by mathy/math, you multiply mathx/math × mathy/math.
Five multiplied by seven is 35.
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If you divide mathx/math by mathy/math, you find how many mathy/maths are in mathx/math.
35 divided by seven is five.
freezing
Adjective
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If you are freezing, you are very cold.