pull-apartadj.n.
/ˈpʊləpɑːt/, U.S. /ˈpʊləˌpɑrt/ Originally U.S.
A. adj.
1. Able to be pulled apart.
ΚΠ
1920 Ada (Okla.) Weekly News 2 Dec. (Planter & Ranchman Suppl.) 3/2 A ‘Pull-Apart’ [toy] circus..should be equally popular with girls and boys.
1956 Arlington Heights (Illinois) Herald 22 Mar. 64/6 Pullapart coffee cake. 78c.
1988 New Yorker 1 Aug. 39/1 Large pull-apart dinner rolls.
2005 N.Y. Times Mag. 20 Feb. 49/1 Whoopi [Goldberg] likes the monkey bread... It's a pull-apart bread.
2. That causes something to be pulled apart; that is involved in pull-apart (see sense B. 1).
ΚΠ
1954 Sun (Baltimore) 6 Feb. (B ed.) 2/5 As the concrete sets these wires are tightened by special jacks, thus..getting rid of the pull-apart tendency in advance.
1990 P. Kearey & F. J. Vine Global Tectonics vii. 124 Tension gives rise to an extensional trough known as a pull-apart basin.
2005 Tectonophysics 406 81 The Palaeogene Judge Daly basin formed in transtensional segments by pull-apart mechanism.
B. n.
1. Chiefly Geology. An act, the action, or the result of being separated or torn apart by pulling.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > wholeness > mutual relation of parts to whole > separation > [noun] > forcible separation > pulling apart
diductiona1640
pull-apart1951
1951 Special Publ. Soc. Econ. Paleontol. & Mineral. No. 2. 89 (caption) ‘Pull-apart’ developed in a laminated bed of clay lying on gravel bed and covered by silts.
1971 Nature 2 July 21/1 Fig. 3 shows the initial opening of the proto-North Atlantic Ocean and the pull-apart of North and South America.
1990 P. Kearey & F. J. Vine Global Tectonics vii. 125 (caption) At a double bend a pull-apart forms at a releasing bend and deformation and uplift at a restraining bend.
2. A pull-apart pastry or roll.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > dishes and prepared food > pastry > other pastry articles > [noun]
crisp?c1390
mellinder1604
baby cakea1637
cannelons1733
yule-dough1777
vol-au-vent1828
sausage roll1852
cheese fingers1863
cheese straw1866
horn1908
pig in a blanket1926
brik1938
chin-chin1948
pull-apart1958
fortune cookie1962
feuilleté1970
money bag1993
1958 Van Nuys (Calif.) News 10 July 9 b/3 Orange custard pullapart..45c.
1990 N. Blei Chi Town 351 Moravsky, a pull-apart with a cheese bottom and apricot top.
1993 M. Crichton Disclosure iii. 263 Stopping at the Bainbridge Bakery to buy a pull-apart and a cup of cappuccino.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1920