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piece together

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piece something together

to fit something together; to assemble the pieces of something, such as a puzzle or something puzzling, and make sense of it. The police were unable to piece the story together. The detective tried to piece together the events leading up to the crime.

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piece together something

also piece something together

1. to combine many small details to give a complete description of something In this account, Rawson tries to piece together the events leading up to the tragedy. I hadn't told anyone about it, though I suppose someone could have pieced it together.

2. to combine small things to make something bigger Peters pieced together night courses for five years to earn a college degree. We had to piece the money together to pay off our debts.

Etymology: from the idea of combining the parts of something to make a whole

See also: piece, together

piece together

Join or combine parts into a whole, as in With information from several observers, she pieced together an account of what had actually taken place . [Late 1500s]

See also: piece, together

piece together

v.

To join or unite the pieces of something: We pieced the broken vase together. The detective pieced together the sequence of events leading up to the accident by interviewing witnesses.

See also: piece, together