pick up the pieces
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to recover from a difficult situation
Literally: gather scattered fragments
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Plans to avoid picking up the pieces
Now the players have to pick up the pieces.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “pick up the pieces” mean?
to recover from a difficult situation Literally: gather scattered fragments
Is “pick up the pieces” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.