piece together

piece together (third-person singular simple present pieces together, present participle piecing together, simple past and past participle pieced together)

1. To physically assemble (or reassemble) from fragments or pieces.

   The community pieced together a quilt using a square stitched in each household.

   It took years for the archeologist to piece together the fragments of the shattered vase.

   • 2013 January 11, Tom Shone, “Oscar nominations pull a surprise by showing some taste – but will it last?”, in The Guardian:

     Perhaps the best news to come out of the nominations was the brightened box-office prospects for such films as Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild, a dazzling piece of magic realism pieced together from just $1.8m, some rusty bathtubs and whatever Louisiana bric-a-brac its youthful collective of film-makers could lay their hands on.

2. (figuratively) To reconstruct an event or goal from incomplete or flawed elements.

   The detective painstakingly collected clues to piece together what happened that tragic night.

   • 2011 October 29, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 3 - 5 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport:

     Arsenal have been piecing their season back together after a poor start and the manner of this win will provide added reserves of confidence and self-belief.