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PlainSpell

separate

sep·a·rate/ˈsɛp.əˌɹeɪt/verb, adjective, noun

separate is spelled S-E-P-A-R-A-T-E, 3 syllables: sep·a·rate. The wrong spelling people search most is seperate: about 5,090 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 3 in 10 of all searches for the word. Separate is a verb meaning “To divide (a thing) into separate parts”.

How many letters and syllables are in separate?

Letters8: S-E-P-A-R-A-T-E
Syllables3: sep·a·rate
In writing68 times per million words; the 1,562nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched2; the most searched, seperate, about 5,090 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell separate?

Separate is spelled S-E-P-A-R-A-T-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 3 in 10 of the searches for separate in either form.

separatethe right spelling10,340 searches a month
seperatee in place of a5,090 searches a month
sepratea missing a300 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is separate?

Separate appears 68 times per million words in written English, the 1,562nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce separate?

  • US /ˈsɛp.əˌɹeɪt/
  • US /ˈsɛpˌɹeɪt/
  • US /ˈsɛp.ɚˌeɪt/

Separate has 3 syllables, split sep·a·rate in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-separate-verb.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of separate

  • separates present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • separating participle, present
  • separated participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does separate mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To divide (a thing) into separate parts.

    Separate the articles from the headings.

  2. 2

    To disunite from a group or mass; to disconnect.

  3. 3

    To cause (things or people) to be separate.

    If the kids get too noisy, separate them for a few minutes.

  4. 4

    To divide itself into separate pieces or substances.

    The sauce will separate if you don't keep stirring.

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo set apart; to select from among others, as for a special use or service.

adjective

  1. 1

    Apart from (the rest); not connected to or attached to (anything else).

    This chair can be disassembled into five separate pieces.

  2. 2

    Not together (with); not united (to).

    I try to keep my personal life separate from work.

noun

  1. 1

    Anything that is sold by itself, especially articles of clothing such as blouses, skirts, jackets, and pants.

  2. 2

    A printing of an article from a periodical as its own distinct publication and distributed independently, often with different page numbers.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Separate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Spanishseparar, cisionar (to divide into separate parts), disgregar, disatraer (to cause to be separate), separado (apart from; not connected to)
Frenchséparé, séparée (apart from; not connected to), séparer (to disunite, disconnect), se séparer (to divide itself)
Germanunterscheiden, absondern (to cause to be separate), einzeln (apart from; not connected to), trennen, scheiden, separieren (to disunite, disconnect)
Portugueseseparado (apart from; not connected to), separar (to disunite, disconnect), separar-se (to divide itself)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does separate come from?

From Middle English separaten (“to separate”), from separat (“separated”) + -en, from Latin sēparātus, perfect passive participle of sēparō (“to separate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from sē- (“apart”) + parō (“prepare”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“produce, procure, bring forward, bring forth”). Displaced Middle English scheden, from Old English scēadan (whence English shed). Doublet of sever, also derived from the same Latin verb.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after separate