take apart

verb

took apart; taken apart; taking apart; takes apart

transitive verb

1

: to disconnect the pieces of (something) : disassemble

take a machine apart

While the giant engines at the Waterworks were being taken apart piece by piece and examined for damage, temporary sources of power were sought.

—Jim Murphy

2

informal : to treat (someone or something) roughly or harshly : to tear into

The voice in his head that normally took him apart was cutting him some slack. Every now and then, it actually gave him some credit.

—David Corbett

Examples of take apart in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Rebuilding a collider The engineers will also take apart the long-running STAR detector, a tracker that captured RHIC’s first collisions in 2000, as well as the newer sPHENIX detector. —Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 15 Apr. 2026

Crews worked through the weekend to take apart the unstable building to make the search possible and recovery operations began Sunday night, officials said. —ABC News, 13 Apr. 2026

If your storage space is limited, look for patio furniture that folds or can be easily taken apart for compact storage. —Jessica Bennett, Better Homes & Gardens, 7 Apr. 2026

Dallas officials have begun taking apart the gargantuan Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. —Devyani Chhetri, Dallas Morning News, 30 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1744, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for take apart

• art
• cart
• carte
• chart
• dart
• fart
• haart
• mart
• part
• smart
• start
• tart