Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of verb tell_apart

2 senses of tell apart

Sense 1
spot, recognize, recognise, distinguish, discern, pick out, make out, tell apart -- (detect with the senses; "The fleeing convicts were picked out of the darkness by the watchful prison guards"; "I can't make out the faces in this photograph")

Sense 2
distinguish, separate, differentiate, secern, secernate, severalize, severalise, tell, tell apart -- (mark as different; "We distinguish several kinds of maple")
       => identify, place -- (recognize as being; establish the identity of someone or something; "She identified the man on the 'wanted' poster")