Common Phrasal verbs

Phrasal verb is a verb combined with an adverb or a preposition, or sometimes both, to give a new meaning, for example: go in for, win over and see to.

Phrasal verb	Meaning	Example
break down	stop working	The bus had broken down
break down	lose control of one´s  emotions	He broke down and cried when he heard the news.
break into	enter illegally	They broke into the house while he was sleeping.
bring up	raise	His grandparents brought him up when his parents divorced.
bring up	mention / raise a topic	I hate to bring up business at lunch.
call back	return a phone call	Mrs. Brown will call you back.
call off	cancel	The match was called off because of the weather.
carry on	continue	When I leave just carry on with your work.
come across	find by chance	John came across his report card while cleaning up the attic.
come into	inherit	When his grandmother died , he came into a fortune.
cut down on sth	reduce	She cut down on the number of cigarettes she smoked.
cut off	to end / disconnect a service (often used in the passive)	The telephone was cut off because they hadn´t paid the bill.
face up to	accept / face a situation, usually unpleasant.	You´ve got to face up to the fact she doesn´t love you anymore.
fall through	when sth that has been organized fails to happen.	The peace negociations fell through over a minor point.
fill in	complete	Could you fill in your date of birth on the form, please?
fill up	make sth full	They filled up the car tank the night before the journey.
find out	discover facts or information	They phoned the station to find out the schedule of the trains.
get across	communicate	I couldn´t get across what I wanted to say.
get away with	escape without punishment	Will the politicians get away with the theft?
get by	survive	Even though they don´t have much money they manage to get by.
get down	depress ( no passive )	Mondays get me down.
get on  ( with sb )	have a ( good / bad ) relationship	Since their last row they´ve got on a lot better?
get over	recover	Since I got over my cold I have got lots more energy.
get through	make contact by phone	I´ve tried ringing them all evening but I just got through this morning.
give away	distribute	He gave away all his money to the local beggars.
give in	surrender	Her father finally gave in and allowed her to go to the disco.
give out	distribute	They gave out thousands of leaflets at the demonstration.
give up	stop doing sth	He gave up skiing after he broke his leg.
go off	explode	The bomb went off outside the restaurant.
go on	happen	There´s a terrible noise outside. What
go out	have a romantic relationship	He asked her if she would like to go out. She refused though.
go up	increase	School fees are going up next term.
grow up	to become an adult	While I was growing up we used to live in that house over there.
hold on	wait	Is Julie there?  -Hold on a second, please. I´ll check.
keep on	continue / persist	Why do you keep on bothering me?
keep up	maintain the same level	Can you walk more slowly, please. I just can´t keep up.
let down	disappoint	He promised to take me to the airport but at the last minute he let me down.
let off	not punish	The judge let him off with a warning because of his age.
live up to	meeting expectations	He spent his whole life failing to live up to his father´s expectations.
look after	take care of	Do you think you could look after the kids while I´m away.
look down on	consider sb else as inferior	People looked down on him because he had once been to prison.
look for	Search	Have you seen my keys? I´ve been looking for them all day long.
look into	investigate	The police are looking into the painting´s disappearance.
look up	consult a reference book	I couldn’t find her number so I looked it up in the telephone book.
look up to	admire / respect	She always looked up to her mother because of her kindness and wisdom.
make out	see with difficulty	What does this word say? I can’t make it out.
make up	invent	When he was a little boy he used to make up stories.
pick up	learn (informally)	She picked the language up by working as an au pair.
pick up	collect	Don’t bother to take a taxi, I´ll come and pick you up.
put down	make someone feel inferior through criticism	Why do you always put him down? He´ll never have any self-confidence.
put down	kill an animal to end its suffering	The vet had no choice but to put down the horse.
put off	postpone	I’m afraid my mother is coming this weekend so we´ll have to put off our game.
put through	connect on the phone	If you wait a moment, I’ll put you through to her extension.
put up	give (temporary) accommodation	The hotels are overbooked. So can you put me up for the night?
put up with	endure / tolerate	I can’t put up with your complaints anymore, I’m leaving.
run out of	finish / consume	Oh no, we´ve run out of coffee. I’ll go to the shop and get some.
run over	hit with a car / vehicle.	Drive slowly along here it you don’t want to run anyone over.
set off	start on a journey	We loaded the car, got in and set off.
sort out	organise / find a solution	When the computer broke down it took an engineer ages to sort out the problem.
speak up	speak louder	Do you think you could speak up, the line is very bad.
split up	separate (end a relationship)	Have you heard? Gemma and Lionel have split up.
take after	inherit a characteristic	He is so stubborn, he really takes after his father.
take in	deceive	Don’t be taken in by her looks.
take off	(plane/rocket/helicopter) leave the ground	The plane took off on time.
take over	gain the control	They took the company over by buying over half the shares.
Take over from sb	substitute	I’ll take over from you while you´re away.
take up	begin a new activity	We´re thinking of taking up German in the autumn.
tell off	criticize / scold	His mother told him off for being cruel to the cat.
talk over	discuss	He felt better after talking his problem over with his mother.
turn down	refuse	She eventually decided to turn the job offer down because of the low salary.
work out	calculate / arrive at a decision	After a couple of hours they worked out that there was something wrong with the printer.