Word.ws English Dictionary

picking up the pieces

picking up the pieces is the present participle of pick up the pieces.

Meaning of pick up the pieces

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

Questions about picking up the pieces

What is picking up the pieces the present participle of?
Picking up the pieces is the present participle of pick up the pieces.

Words near picking up the pieces in the dictionary

  1. picking up stitches
  2. picking up the ball and running with it
  3. picking up the mantle
  4. picking up the pace
  5. picking up the phone
  6. picking up the pieces
  7. picking up the slack
  8. picking up the tab
  9. picking up the threads
  10. picking up the threads of
  11. picking up what someone is laying down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: picking up the pieces (page history and authors); 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.

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