8 Phrasal Verbs

[Elenor Waas]

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Phrasal verbs (also called multi-word verbs) are idiomatic expressions, combining verbs and prepositions to make new verbs whose meaning is often not obvious from the dictionary definitions of the individual words. They are widely used in both written and spoken English, and new ones are formed all the time as they are a flexible way of creating new terms.

A phrasal verb consists of a verb and a preposition or adverb that modifies or changes the meaning; 'give up' is a phrasal verb that means 'stop doing' something, which is very different from 'give'. The word or words that modify a verb in this manner can also go under the name particle.

Our phrasal verbs list includes entries from around the world submitted by numerouscontributors. It covers both modern language and older phrases. If you know of phrasal verbs inEnglish that you feel should be included here, please use our online form to let us know about it. Please note that all submissions arereviewed for validity and accuracy by our Editor.

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Why are you bringing that argument up now?

Police are looking into connections between the two crimes.

We need to come up with a solution.

Phrasal verbs are very common in English, especially in more informal contexts. They are made up of a verb and a particle or, sometimes, two particles. The particle often changes the meaning of the verb.

2. See above! Phrasal verbs, or multi-word verbs, are very common in speech. Often the alternatives sound drier or more formal, and having different ways to express the same idea allows the speaker options for emphasis, rhythm, cadence and so on. For example, these two sentences below mean the same but the first has an entirely different rhythm to it which is pleasant to the ear:

3. Multi-word verbs usually have more than one meaning, which makes them very flexible. Often there is literal meaning (pick something up from the floor) and an idiomatic meaning (pick someone up from school). The literal meaning is usually easy to work out but the idiomatic meaning can be less clear and often needs to be memorised.

The best way to pick up and become familiar with multi-word verbs is to read and listen to as much authentic/natural English as possible. Happily there's a lot to choose from online, and watching films or series with the subtitles (in English) on is also a very good option. You can watch something in your own language with English subtitles or something in English with English subtitles. These are great ways to grow your English and pick up good grammatical and lexical patterns.

This is not a criticism or anything like that (I love all the work you share with everyone), but it's really difficult to find a rule that cannot be, well, bent, if not broken. Here's a sentence you can find in the Cambridge dictionary, with the verb and the two particles separated:

You're not wrong! The explanation on this page is an introduction to the topic of phrasal verbs. It doesn't cover everything and doesn't explain all the details, which are quite complex, because it would be too much information for people at the B1 or B2 level. But since you ask, I'll explain this particular case a bit more even though in the end it's still an example of a 'bent' rule.

'to get over with' is a phrasal-prepositional verb. Such verbs can be broken down as verb + particle + preposition. Most of these verbs are inseparable, i.e. the objects of most phrasal-prepositional verbs come after the preposition.

And so that's why the sentence you found is correct. I don't think it would ever be wrong or awkward for you to always put the object after the preposition, though, so in terms of your own speaking and writing, just follow the rule and you'll be fine!

Hello! May I ask you something? The thing that I want to ask is easy to understand but complicated to write. So, I will give an example. 'Suck something into something' is a phrasal verb meaning to cause someone or something to gradually become involved in an unpleasant situation or harmful activity. I got that definition from the dictionary. But why the same group of words (suck sth into sth) is not a phrasal verb in the following sentence: The spaceship was sucked into a blackhole. Is it because its meaning is different from the one I wrote above? It is literally sucked into sth, not involved in an unpleasant situation. So is that possible to use the same group of words both as a phrasal verb and not in different sentences? Could you please give another example? (What I mean is for example we know X+into is a phrasal verb which means A. If it means B in another sentence, can we still count it as a phrasal verb or not?) Thanks in advance!

What you said is right. A phrasal verb is normally understood as having a meaning that comes from not just the verb but also the particle, so the verb does not normally have its original and literal meaning. In the spaceship example, it is literally and physically sucked into the black hole, so this is simply a verb with a preposition. But if you say, e.g., the company was sucked into debt, it's not a physical action but a figurative one, which is why the dictionary that you checked considered it a phrasal verb.

I have one more question about this sentence: I really don't to get involved in this argument, but I can feel myself being sucked into it. How do we form the first part in this sentence? 'I really don't to get involved in...' Why do we use this form? Could you please give another example? By the way, thank you for the previous answer! It is really helpful, you are the best!

The question is that particle means both prepositions and adverbs. Then why I am seeing above the word adverbial participle, in which the preposition is also treated like adverbial participle. That's why? Are they modifying the verb in phrasal verb, that's why it is treated like adverb?

Phrasal verbs ordinarily cannot be understood based upon the meanings of the individual parts alone but must be considered as a whole: the meaning is non-compositional and thus unpredictable.[a] Phrasal verbs are differentiated from other classifications of multi-word verbs and free combinations by criteria based on idiomaticity, replacement by a single-word verb, w-question formation and particle movement.[1][2]

The term phrasal verb was popularized by Logan Pearsall Smith, in Words and Idioms (1925), in which he states that the OED Editor Henry Bradley suggested it to him.[3] This terminology is mainly used in English as a second language teaching.

Some textbooks apply the term "phrasal verb" primarily to verbs with particles in order to distinguish phrasal verbs from verb phrases composed of a verb and a collocated preposition.[4][b] Others include verbs with prepositions under the same category and distinguish particle verbs and prepositional verbs as two types of phrasal verbs.[5][c]Since a prepositional phrase can complement a particle verb, some explanations distinguish three types of phrasal verb constructions depending on whether the verb combines with a particle, a preposition phrase, or both,[6] though the third type is not a distinct linguistic phenomenon.Some linguists reject the term.[d]

Particle verbs (phrasal verbs in the strict sense) are two-word verbs composed of a simple verb and a particle extension that modifies its meaning. The particle is thus integrally collocated with the verb. In older grammars, the particle was usually analyzed as an adverb.[7][8]

Particles commonly used in this construction include to, in, into, out, up, down, at, on, off, under, against.[e] All these words can also be used as prepositions, but the prepositional use is distinct, and modern dictionaries may list, for example, to (particle) and to (preposition) as separate lexemes.[f] In the particle verb construction, they cannot be construed as prepositions because they are not being used as part of a prepositional phrase.

When a particle verb is transitive, it may be difficult to distinguish it from a prepositional verb.[11][g] A simple diagnostic which works in many cases is to consider whether it is possible to shift the preposition/particle to after the noun. An English preposition can never follow its noun, so if we can change verb - P - noun to verb - noun - P, then P cannot be a preposition and must be particle.[h] But even with a particle verb, shifting the particle is not always possible, for example if it is followed by a pronoun instead of a noun, or if there is a fixed collocation. A second diagnostic is to think about where the instinctive division would be if we had to take a breath in the middle of the phrase. A particle would naturally be grouped with the preceding verb, a preposition with the following noun phrase.[i] In the following examples, which show both of these approaches, an asterisk indicates an impossible form.

A third test, which probes further into the question of the natural division, would be to insert an adverb or adverbial between the verb and the particle/preposition. This is possible with a following prepositonal phrase, but not if the adverbial is intruding between the two parts of a particle verb.[12]

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