Word.ws English Dictionary

pick up the pieces

pick up the pieces verb: to restore one's life (or a given situation etc.) to a normal state, after a calamity, shock etc.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To restore one's life (or a given situation etc.) to a normal state, after a calamity, shock etc.
    • Picking up the pieces after the Suez disaster, the British found themselves getting used to the idea that they are not as big a power as they thought they were.1957 January 14, “Roberts' Rules of Order”, in Time Magazine
    • "Cutting administrators is a huge mistake, and will only mean other staff such as nurses have to pick up the pieces."2011 February 3, Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian

Forms of pick up the pieces

third-person singular presentpicks up the pieces
present participlepicking up the pieces
past participlepicked up the pieces
pastpicked up the pieces

Questions about pick up the pieces

What does pick up the pieces mean?
Pick up the pieces means to restore one's life (or a given situation etc.) to a normal state, after a calamity, shock etc.
What part of speech is pick up the pieces?
Pick up the pieces is a verb.
What is the past tense of pick up the pieces?
The past tense of pick up the pieces is picked up the pieces.

Words near pick up the pieces in the dictionary

  1. pick up stompies
  2. pick up the ball and run with it
  3. pick up the mantle
  4. pick up the pace
  5. pick up the phone
  6. pick up the pieces
  7. pick up the slack
  8. pick up the tab
  9. pick up the threads
  10. pick up the threads of
  11. pick up truck

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pick up the pieces (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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “pick up the pieces.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pick_up_the_pieces. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.