What are phrasal verbs?
Phrasal verbs are phrases that indicate actions. They are generally used in spoken English and informal texts. Phrasal verbs consist of a verb and a preposition or an adverb:
| Verb | Preposition/adverb |
|---|---|
| get | up |
| go | through |
| write | down |
| take | after |
Sometimes phrasal verbs consist of three elements:
| Verb | Preposition / adverb 1 | Preposition / adverb 2 |
|---|---|---|
| look | forward | to |
| put | up | with |
| sit | in | for |
When added to the verb, the preposition or adverb may change completely the meaning of the verb. Here are some examples:
| Phrasal verb | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| look for | search/seek | He is looking for his keys |
| look up to | have a great deal of respect for a person | His father is his model. He is the person he looks up to. |
| look forward to | await eagerly/anticipate with pleasure | She is looking forward to visiting Paris. |
| look up | to try to find a piece of information by looking in a book or on a computer: | She didn't understand the word. So she looked it up in her dictionary |
The whole phrase acts as a verb, and has a different meaning to the original verb. For example, look up, look after and look forward to do NOT mean the same as look.
Some phrasal verbs can be "separable" because the object can go between the verb and the rest of the phrase. For example, in the following sentences the phrasal verb "turn on" is separable, so the object ("the radio") can go after or in the middle of the phrasal verb:
- Mary turned on the radio.
- Mary turned the radio on.
Here are some more example sentences with phrasal verbs:
- They had to put off their wedding for a year.
- What time do you get up in the morning?
- I was disappointed that they turned my invitation down.
- Who is looking after your dog while you're away?
- She didn't get on with her boss so she was glad when he left.
- Luckily, we didn't run out of petrol and we got home okay.
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