tell apart
(tr, adverb) to distinguish between; discern: can you tell the twins apart?
Words Nearby tell apart
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
How to use tell apart in a sentence
Both books feature characters that are maddeningly difficult to tell apart.
Too Soon to Write: Choire Sicha’s ‘Very Recent History’ | Stefan Beck | August 8, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTLife is not Hollywood,” intones the narrator, “and the good guys and bad guys are hard to tell apart.
In Florida, It’s Often Shoot First, Learn The Law Later | Aram Roston | May 17, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThis is the work of some six or seven writers, whose hands are sometimes hard to tell apart.
The Supposed Autographa of John the Scot | Edward Kennard RandThere were forty scholars: squirmy, grimy little things that I found it hard to tell apart at first.
Atlantic Narratives | Mary AntinFar, far above us the monster mountains nuzzled among the clouds till cloud and mountain were hard to tell apart.
The Trail of '98 | Robert W. Service
All three were well over six feet, and Hjalmar stood head and shoulders over his brothers, whom I never learned to tell apart.
The Planet Savers | Marion Zimmer Bradley
Other Idioms and Phrases with tell apart
Discern or distinguish, as in It's hard to tell the twins apart. [First half of 1900s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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