tell apart

phrasal verb

told apart; telling apart; tells apart

: to see what the differences are between (people or things) : to identify (people or things that look similar to each other)

It's hard to tell the twins apart.

Examples of tell apart in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Both are predominantly black and white from bill to tail and can be difficult to tell apart, particularly in flight. —M.d. Johnson, Field & Stream, 8 Feb. 2024

The gold buckle on top of the Bison Spirit mule is impossible to tell apart from the real thing. —Kristine Solomon, Travel + Leisure, 27 Aug. 2023

One of these, which has never before been used on Mars, is there to tell apart left- and right-handed amino acids, enabling it to make a case for living or nonliving origins in a way that prior missions could not. —Carmen Drahl, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 May 2023