sort out — organise
phrasal verbB1IELTS 5+neutralcore
To arrange things in order or put them in the right place so they are tidy or easy to find.
Say it like a native
Textbook I need to resolve and organise my financial documents.
Native I need to sort out my finances.
'Sort out' naturally covers both tidying and fixing in one phrase, and sounds far less stiff than 'resolve and organise'.
Pattern: sort out + noun/pronoun
In use
- I need to sort out my desk because it's covered in papers.daily life
- If I have a lot of documents, I usually sort them out into different folders so I can find them easily later.IELTS speaking
Common mistake
✗ Let me sort out it.
✓ Let me sort it out.
With a pronoun, the object goes in the middle: 'sort it out', never 'sort out it'.
Common collocations
sort out + mess/problem— a problem, the mess, the details, your life
Don't confuse it
Not the same as 'sort through', which means to look at things one by one.
Related
- sort out (solve a problem) — Another meaning of 'sort out' is 'solve a problem'; compare the examples to keep the meanings separate.