Phrasal Verbs: Definitions and Examples
Common Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs are combinations of verbs and prepositions or adverbs. Understanding them is crucial for fluency in English. Here’s a list of common phrasal verbs and their meanings:
- Look up: Admire
- Come across: Find
- Find out: Discover
- Grow up: Get bigger or taller
- Do without: No need
- Catch up with: Capture
- Get out of: Escape
- Help out: Give a hand
- Take up: Continue with something
- Get ahead: Advance
- Try out: Make an attempt
- Open up: Reveal
- Move on: Advance
- Keep something to oneself: Not tell something
- Own up to something: Possess
- Butt in: Interrupt
- Stick up for someone: Support
- Watch/Look out: Be careful
- Log in/on/out: Record (for computers)
- Sign in/out: Sign (a document, register)
- Fed up with: Be sick of something
- Deal with: Treat
- Get rid of: Eliminate
- Break up: Separate
- Come down with something: Fall ill with
- Warm up: Heat up
- Kick in: Note, start to take effect
- Get over something: Recover
- Tell off: Reprove
- Cut down on: Reduce
- Get off/on: Enter/exit (a bus, train, plane)
- Get on: Enter (bus, train, plane)
- Pull into: Arrive (at a station or stop)
- Pick something/someone up: Collect someone
- Set out: Begin (a journey)
- Stop over: Stay in a place to visit
- Pull out: Depart (from a station or stop)
- Check in/out: Sign in (at a hotel, airport)
- Make up: Find a solution, invent
- Fall out with: Stop being friends