sort out
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English
Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
sort out (third-person singular simple present sorts out, present participle sorting out, simple past and past participle sorted out)
- (transitive) To clarify by reviewing mentally.
- It's a bit confused at the moment, I'll try to sort it out later.
- (transitive) To arrange.
- Could you call Dave and sort out a meeting for tomorrow?
- (transitive) To fix (a problem).
- The computer won't let me delete that file; could you sort it out?
- (transitive) To organise or separate into groups, as a collection of items, so as to make tidy.
- Could you sort out your wardrobe and put the clothes you no longer use in one pile to give away and another to throw away?
- (transitive) To separate from the remainder of a group; often construed with from.
- We need to sort out the problems we can solve from the ones we can't.
- They've already sorted out the students in group A, so we just need to worry about groups B and C.
- (transitive, British, slang) To take action to stop someone who has been causing trouble, often by physically attacking them.
- If you do that again, I'll soon sort you out.
- 2016, Jon Bounds, Danny Smith, Pier Review: A Road Trip in Search of the Great British Seaside:
- Most of the babies and kids would be put to bed by one of the adults and left on their own. Every half an hour a bluecoat would walk around the aisles and if they heard crying from your chalet they would put your block and chalet number on a board to the right of the stage. The first few times I went to a proper church and saw the hymn order to the side of the pulpit I wondered why nobody was going to sort out those kids.
- (UK, slang) To provide (somebody) with a necessity, or a solution to a problem.
- Hey man, I want some weed. —I'll sort you out, mate.
- We really need to sort Chris out with a girlfriend.
Usage notes
- In senses 1 and 2, the object typically refers to an abstraction: a problem, or a situation, or the like.
- In senses 3 and 4, the object may refer to any sort of collection — a collection of physical objects, or of people, or of abstractions. In sense 4, there is very often a from phrase, characterizing the remainder of the collection.
- In sense 5, the object refers to a person or group of people.
- In all senses, the object may appear before or after the particle out. If the object is particularly short or lexically "light" — as with all personal pronouns — it will usually appear before the particle ("sort it out"), and if it is particularly long or lexically "heavy" — as with a noun phrase with a modifier phrase attached — it will usually appear after it ("sort out the patients with scoliosis"). Intermediate-length objects may appear either before or after ("sort the wheat out", "sort out the wheat").
- In British usage, in sense of “to fix a problem”, often used without “out”, as in “I’ll get that sorted.”
Derived terms
Translations
to clarify
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to arrange
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to fix problem
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to organise or separate into groups
to separate from the remainder of a group
slang: to attack physically
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