Study Resource: 150+ common phrasal verbs in English and their meanings
Note: The list below will give some of the more common meanings of the phrasal verbs below, but does not outline every meaning for each expression. To really master these expressions, look them up in a dictionary!
Base verb | Phrasal Verb | Meaning(s) | Example |
---|---|---|---|
add | add up (to) | assemble numbers or evidence into a conclusion | I added up the numbers. |
All the evidence added up to one conclusion: Nellie had betrayed me! | |||
bring | bring up | mention | She brought up a few problems with that idea. |
bring back | return something by hand | Marcus brought the book back to the library. | |
bring about | cause a change to take place | A meteor brought about the end of the dinosaurs. | |
break | break down | simplify | Let’s break down the steps in this process… |
stop functioning | My car broke down on the way to work. | ||
break up | separate from a close relationship (romantic or business) | The Beatles broke up in 1970. | |
calm | calm down | become calm | She was crying for a while, but eventually she calmed down and told me what was wrong. |
carry | carry out | cause an event to happen | Napoleon carried out an attack on Egypt in 1798. |
carry on | continue | We told her to be quiet, but she carried on talking during the lecture. | |
carry over | transfer | Does your vacation time carry over into the new year? | |
catch | catch up | get reacquainted | I caught up with my sister on our weekly phone call. |
reach a group ahead of you while moving | Wait! Slow down so I can catch up to you! | ||
catch out | recognize someone has lied or broken a rule | My mom is always trying to catch me out in a lie, but I almost always tell her the truth! It’s not fair! | |
catch on | realize what is actually going on | I finally caught on that they were talking about Jim and not his brother. | |
become a popular trend | Leg warmers really caught on in the 1980s. | ||
check | check in(to) / out (of) | tell a hotel that you are arriving / leaving | We checked in(to the hotel) at 4 in the afternoon. We checked out (of the hotel) at 10 in the morning. |
check into | examine records to make sure that information is true | The police checked into their records, but there were no missing people who fit her description. | |
check in (on / with) | make sure someone or something is okay | Pedro checked in on his sister after her surgery. | |
clean | clean up | tidy a messy space | I cleaned up my house to receive guests. |
clean out | empty a messy space | We cleaned out my mom’s garage so that we could sell the house. | |
come | come up | appear in a conversation | I thought that we would talk about our plans for next weekend, but it didn’t come up. |
come up with | have an idea | Who came up with the idea for this t-shirt? It’s so funny! | |
come on | hurry or keep going (imperative only) | Come on! We’re going to be late! | |
come (a)round | visit (from the perspective of the person receiving a visit) | John came round for a visit last week | |
decide to agree after an argument | Patrick was angry that I bought a blender, but he came around after he realized how much he liked my smoothies. | ||
wake up after fainting | I was very confused when I came round after surgery. | ||
come / go up (to) | approach and stop near something or someone | A little girl came up to me in the store and said she was lost. | |
count | count on | feel confident about someone’s behavior (with infinitive) | I can always count on her to say the wrong thing! |
feel confident that someone will help you | I can really count on her. | ||
dig | dig in(to) | eat with energy | The kids really dug in(to their dinner)! |
investigate | The police dug into his past a little, and found out that he had been arrested before. | ||
fall | fall apart | collapse into pieces | My daughter’s toy fell apart even though she only used it once! |
fall down / over | fall to the ground from a standing or upright position | Tony was so dizzy that he fell down / over. | |
fall out | have a fight that damages a relationship | I fell out with my best friend over where we should go on vacation. | |
figure | figure out | solve puzzle or discover information | After talking to him for a while, I figured out that he worked for Google. |
find | find out | discover a fact / secret | Margaret found out that her great grandfather was from Portugal. |
freak | freak out | panic or become wild with emotion (casual) | My mom really freaked out when I told her I was failing history class. |
get | get over | stop feeling bad about something | At first, he was hurt by what I said, but he got over it. |
get back (at) | take revenge | She got him back for the prank he played. She got back at him for the prank he played. | |
get back to | return to a conversation with someone | I’ll get back to you on Monday with my answer. | |
get on / along (with) | have a good relationship with someone | Thankfully, my wife and my mother get on / along (with each other) very well. | |
get on / off | enter / exit a large vehicle | He got on the train at 44th street and he got off at 32nd street. | |
get around | evade a rule or obstacle | It is illegal to keep a wild bird as a pet, but Sarah got around the rule by adopting a starling, which is not protected. | |
get through | survive something difficult | It was a miserable afternoon, but we got through it. | |
get up | stand (often from bed in the morning) | Nancy usually gets up at 7 a.m. My grandmother needs help to get up from her chair. | |
get out of | avoid an obligation | How did you get out of doing that assignment? It took me forever! | |
get away with | do something wrong without punishment | Marco always gets away with breaking the rules because the teacher likes him. | |
give | give up | stop trying | I tried really hard to climb the rope, but eventually I had to give up and let go. |
give / hand out | distribute | The teacher gave / handed out the worksheets. | |
give back | return something | Give me back my controller! I want to play! | |
give in(to) | let someone or something else win | My mother refused to buy the toy at first, but eventually she gave in and bought it. | |
go | go out | leave the house | I tried to find my dad, but he’d gone out. |
date | They’ve been going out for a year. | ||
go on | happen; continue | What’s going on? I went on talking for an hour. | |
go over | review | Let’s go over what we did and maybe we can figure out where we made a mistake… | |
go off (to) | leave for a destination | Patrick went off to Columbus for the weekend. | |
go away | leave | Go away Chuck! You’re being annoying! | |
go down | sink | The captain of the Titanic went down with the ship. | |
be recorded | She went down as one of the most intelligent women in history. | ||
happen (informal) | Something went down today that will really surprise you! | ||
grow | grow up | become mature | My mom grew up in the USSR. |
hold | hold up | stop something | The hiring problems held up the project. |
hold out (for) | to wait, even though making a change is tempting | Someone offered to buy my house, but I decided to hold out for a better price. | |
hold down | defend or protect a location | They held down the fort until more soldiers arrived. | |
hold / hang on(to) | not let go | The horse was bucking, but luckily he managed to hold / hang on! | |
keep | I held / hung onto my grandmother’s rocking chair after the funeral. | ||
have | have on | be wearing | She had on a red baseball cap. |
lie as a joke (British) | Are you having me on or did you really meet Harry Styles? | ||
hang | hang up | end a phone call | Patrick tried to apologize, but Maggie had already hung up the phone. |
hang clothing or similar items | I hung up my shirt in the closet. | ||
hang out | spend time casually | Are you hanging out with your friends today? I used to hang out in the school greenhouse. | |
hang around | spend time casually | Who is that boy that’s always hanging around here? | |
hurry | hurry up | hurry suddenly (usually imperative) | Hurry up! You’re falling behind! |
look | look up | search for something in a reference | If you don’t know what the word means, look it up in a dictionary! |
look down on | think that someone or something is inferior | I generally look down on people who are mean to waiters. | |
look at | examine | She looked at the painting for an hour. | |
look over | examine and check information | I had my friend look over my English homework before I turned it in. | |
look through | examine writing quickly | She looked through the assignment, but decided to start it later. | |
look around | explore a location | We looked around the apartment, but decided not to rent it. | |
look out (for) | watch for danger (often imperative) | Look out! The lion has escaped! | |
watch someone to protect them | My mom told me to look out for my little brother on his first day of school. | ||
look for | seek | Are you looking for your keys? They’re over here! | |
look after | take care of someone or something | I read the instructions on the tag to learn how to look after my new plant. | |
live | live with | become resigned | I can’t live with the fact that I hurt you! |
live up to | have the positive characteristics that someone expected | The amusement park did not live up to my expectations. | |
lie | lie down | go from standing to lying | I told my dog to lie down on his bed. |
lie around | pass time by being lazy | Don’t you have something better to do than lying around the house all day? | |
make | make up | stop fighting | We had a fight last night, but we made up before bedtime. |
invent a story | I made up a story about a tiger to tell my daughter at bedtime. | ||
move | move in(to) / out of | change to a new house | I moved out of my apartment and into a house in June. |
pass | pass away / on | die (polite) | My first dog passed away / on when I was seven. |
pass on | transfer something that you received to someone else | My daughter passed the form that the teacher gave her on to me. | |
pass out | faint | He held his breath for so long that he passed out! | |
pay | pay back | return borrowed money | I paid my brother back for the ice cream he bought me. |
pay off | finish paying for a loan | We are having a party because Tom finally paid off his house! | |
bribe to ignore a crime | The criminals were not punished because they had paid off the police. | ||
pick | pick up | lift in a hand | I picked up my grocery bags and walked inside. |
find a signal (as with radio) | On a long car trip, I like to see what channels we can pick up when we get to new cities. | ||
pick out | choose | Paula went to a boutique to pick out a gift for her mother’s birthday. | |
pick at | bother a wound with your fingers | Stop picking at your scab! You need to let it heal by itself! | |
pick over | look for something you want within a set of options | We got to the plant sale late and found that there wasn’t much left because the plants had been picked over by other customers. | |
point | point out | call attention to a fact or thing | I pointed out that he had forgotten to put on a tie. |
pull | pull out (of) | decide to not participate | Paula signed up for my yoga class, but she pulled out at the last moment. |
pull in(to) / out (of) | drive slowly into or out of a parking area | We pulled into the parking lot at 7 and pulled out at 10. | |
pull through | recover from illness or a difficult time | She had cancer, but luckily she pulled through. | |
pull up to | stop a vehicle at a location | After three hours of driving, we pulled up to Grandma’s house. | |
pull back | retreat slightly | Robin Hood pulled his men back into the hallway to recover. | |
put | put up | assemble a structure | We put up the tent under a large pine tree. |
put up with | tolerate | I can’t put up with her bad behavior any longer! | |
put down | release something from a hand (onto a surface) | Please put your bag down on the table. | |
put together | assemble from parts | I put the furniture together by following the directions. | |
put off | make someone feel disgust or distaste | Her behavior towards the waiter really put me off. | |
get someone to go away and stop bothering you for a while | My son keeps asking me for dessert, but I managed to put him off for a while by getting out a new toy. | ||
put back | return something to its proper place | I put the book back on the shelf after I finished reading it. | |
put away | put something in its proper place | I asked my son to put away all of his toys. | |
put out | extinguish a fire | She put out the campfire at the end of the night. | |
put on | start wearing something | Margot put on her new hat and admired herself in the mirror. | |
run | run off | leave secretly | I used to have a cat, but he ran off in the middle of the night. |
run out (of) | reach the end of a resource | The test was so long that Tom ran out of time to finish it! | |
run into | meet unexpectedly | My dad ran into a friend of his at the store. | |
run through | practice or repeat quickly | We ran through our lines before the play began, to practice | |
spend recklessly | Unfortunately, I ran through all of my spending money for the week in just 2 days. | ||
run away (from) | flee | Pat ran away from the bear. | |
see | see off | attend someone’s departure | Pat’s dad went to the train station with her to see her off. |
sell | sell out | lose integrity in order to make more money | He used to be my favorite singer before he sold out and started making boring music. |
set | set down | stop holding and put on a surface | Carefully, he set the vase down on the table. |
set out | start a quest (literal or figurative) | I didn’t set out to hurt him, but I think that I did. | |
place things on a surface in an organized way | She set her art out on the table at the art sale. | ||
set off | trigger something, like an alarm | The burglars were caught because they set off the alarm. | |
show | show up | arrive or appear | My dad showed up late for the party because of the traffic. |
show off | display one’s talents | When Sebastian was eight, he loved to show off his tricks on the monkey bars. | |
show around | give someone a tour | The real estate agent showed her clients around the house. | |
sign | sign up | put your name on a list to do a task | I signed up for a new aerobics class that starts next month. |
sign off | give written permission to an inferior | The staff are having a pizza party. Did you sign off on this? | |
sit | sit down | go from standing to sitting | The guests sat down around the table for dinner. |
sit up | straighten one’s back in a chair | You look like a slob in that chair. Sit up! | |
speak | speak up | speak more loudly | Paula was a shy child and her teachers always had to ask her to speak up. |
speak out | talk about your opinion on an issue | Celebrities are often asked to speak out about political issues. | |
split | split up | separate into parts or pieces | The teacher split up the students into four groups. |
stay | stay in / out | stay at home / away from home | When we were teenagers, my brother would stay out late every night, but I preferred to stay in. |
stay over | spend the night at someone else’s house | Does Nick need a ride home, or is he staying over tonight? | |
take | take over | take control of something | Our new boss takes over in May, after our old boss retires. |
take down | disassemble a structure | We took down the tent before packing everything else, so that it could dry in the sun. | |
take up | claim an object, cause, or responsibility (poetic) | When his mentor died, the hero took up his sword and fought the villain himself! | |
take out | redirect a negative emotion to someone / something else | My friend is really angry at his parents, but he’s taking it out on me. | |
bring someone to a restaurant and pay for them | When my mom comes to visit, I’ll be taking her out to my favorite restaurant. | ||
take back | grab your possession from someone else | When she saw how her sister was treating her doll, Alice took it back from her. | |
take on | claim a burden or responsibility | After I got my driver’s license, I took on more responsibility for my siblings. | |
oppose something or someone | In tonight’s game, The Lions are taking on The Bears. | ||
take off | remove clothing | He asks his guests to take off their shoes before they enter the house. | |
start to fly | The plane will take off at 7:45. | ||
take after | resemble | Everyone says I take after my mother, but in personality I am more like my dad. | |
talk | talk over | discuss a problem | After our fight, we talked over what had happened and apologized. |
talk around | avoid a topic that everyone is aware is important | After Jane and Jeffrey fought, they acted like nothing was wrong, but we all knew they were just talking around the issue. | |
throw | throw out / away | put in the trash | After I finished making my broth, I threw the chicken bones out / away. |
throw up | vomit | Sam can’t come to school today because he threw up this morning. | |
throw on | quickly dress in a garment | I was in bed when the doorbell rang, so I threw on a robe to answer the door. | |
try | try on | sample clothing to see if it looks good | I like to go shopping, but I hate trying on clothes in the changing rooms. |
try out | sample something | Patrick likes to try out all the options before he buys a new bike. | |
turn | turn out | result in a circumstance | As it turned out, my daughter did like to eat sweet potatoes. |
turn up / down | raise or lower volume | I know that you just turned down the volume, but now it’s too quiet. Could you turn it up just a little bit? | |
turn around | reverse direction | Norah drove past the zoo so she had to turn around and come back. | |
turn over | flip upside-down | He turned over the form and found more questions on the other side. | |
turn into | transform | The giant robot turned into a car! | |
wake | wake up | become awake | I generally wake up at 6:45, but I lie in bed for a while after that. |
watch | watch out (for) | be aware of a possible danger | You should watch out for dangerous drivers on New Year’s Eve! |
work | work out | exercise | I usually work out at the gym near my house. |
solve a puzzle, problem, or conflict | Paula and Jeffery worked out a solution: he would do the dishes and she would clean the bathrooms. | ||
work up | get someone excited or brave | My uncle always gets worked up when he talks about football and we have to tell him to calm down. | |
work around | discover a solution that avoids an obstacle | Johnny has school from 8 to 3, so we had to work around that so that he could be in the movie. | |
work through | solve a problem step-by-step | Nick is working through a lot of issues from his childhood with his therapist. | |
work on | make progress on a task | I’m going to work on my English homework first tonight. | |
work ahead | make progress on a task before you need to | I think I’ll work ahead in math, because I’m going to be very busy next week. | |
write | write down | write information | Please write your name and date of birth down at the top of the page. |