Word.ws English Dictionary

pick apart

pick apart verb: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pick, apart.

Verb

pick apart (third-person singular simple present picks apart, present participle picking apart, simple past and past participle picked apart)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pick, apart.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To review or analyse in great detail
    1. (idiomatic, transitive) To criticise (especially small details).
  3. (idiomatic, transitive) To overcome by skilled execution.
    • The quarterback picked apart the secondary defense in the first half.
    • Moyes, who never won a derby at Liverpool in 11 years as Everton manager, did not find the Etihad any more forgiving as City picked United apart in midfield, where Toure looked in a different class to United's £27.5m new boy Marouane Fellaini, and in defence as Aguero tormented Nemanja Vidic and...2013 September 22, Phil McNulty, “Man City 4-1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport

Forms of pick apart

third-person singular presentpicks apart
present participlepicking apart
past participlepicked apart
pastpicked apart

Questions about pick apart

What does pick apart mean?
Pick apart means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pick, apart.
What part of speech is pick apart?
Pick apart is a verb.
What is the past tense of pick apart?
The past tense of pick apart is picked apart.

Words near pick apart in the dictionary

  1. pick and pack
  2. pick and pass
  3. pick and place
  4. pick and pop
  5. pick and roll
  6. pick apart
  7. pick at
  8. pick away at
  9. pick bids off the wall
  10. Pick bodies
  11. Pick body

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pick apart (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pick apart.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pick apart.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pick_apart. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.