carving up
Cutting into portions
Carving up is dividing something into portions, often with implications of aggressive or self-interested distribution.
The image comes from cutting meat: They're carving up the turkey.
More often figurative: The victors carved up the conquered territory, Corporate raiders carved up the company and sold it for parts.
The phrase suggests taking pieces for oneself rather than fair allocation.
- slicingCutting into portions
- cutting upDividing with blade
- dividingSeparating into parts
- butcheringProcessing animals into cuts
- portioningDividing into shares
dissecting · cleaving · cutting · severing · partitioning · splitting · divvying up · knife · meat · turkey · Thanksgiving · platter · territory · spoils · spoils of war · distributing · allocating · dismembering
- breaking downsplitting, fragmenting, dividing, breaking up, partitioning
- Fragmentationfragmentation, balkanization, breakup, disintegration, splintering
- distributingdistributing, dispensing, allocating, apportioning, doling out
carving upunifying
Making disparate elements one
consolidating · preserving · maintaining · integrating · merging
carving upputting together
Combining into a whole
assembling · joining · combining · piecing together · merging