<p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>To keep apart or divide, as by an intervening barrier or space: to separate two fields by a fence.</li><li>To put, bring, or force apart; part: to separate two fighting boys.</li><li>To set apart; disconnect; dissociate: to separate church and state.</li><li>To remove or sever from association, service, etc., especially legally or formally: He was separated from the army right after V-E Day.</li><li>To sort, part, divide, or disperse (an assemblage, mass, compound, etc.), as into individual units, components, or elements.</li><li>To take by parting or dividing; extract (usually followed by from or out): to separate metal from ore.</li><li>Mathematics: To write (the variables of a differential equation) in a form in which the differentials of the independent and dependent variables are, respectively, functions of these variables alone.</li></ul><p><strong>Adjective</strong></p><ul><li>Detached, disconnected, or disjoined.</li><li>Being or standing apart; distant or dispersed: two separate houses; The desert has widely separate oases.</li><li>Existing or maintained independently: separate organizations.</li><li>Individual or particular: each separate item.</li><li>Not shared; individual or private: separate checks; separate rooms.</li><li>Noting or relating to a church or other organization no longer associated with the original or parent organization.</li></ul><p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>Usually separates: women's outer garments that may be worn in combination with a variety of others to make different ensembles, as matching and contrasting blouses, skirts, and sweaters.</li><li>Offprint: a bibliographical unit, as an article, chapter, or other portion of a larger work, printed from the same type but issued separately, sometimes with additional pages.</li></ul>