Phrasal Verbs: Examples & Exercises

Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb and one or two particles (prepositions or adverbs) that, together, form a meaning different from the original verb.

The meaning of a phrasal verb is often idiomatic: you can’t always guess it from the individual words. But knowing prepositions can give you an idea.
They are very common in spoken and informal English, but they are also used in writing.

Examples:

look after = to care for someone (e.g., She looks after her grandmother.)

take off = to remove clothing or to leave the ground (e.g., The plane took off.)

Word Order with a Phrasal Verb: Split or Not?
List of Phrasal Verbs
Exercises on Phrasal Verbs

Word Order with a Phrasal Verb: Split or Not?

Some of these verbs allow you to place the object either after the phrasal verb or between the verb and the particle. Others do not.

1. Separable Phrasal Verb

These verbs can be split by a noun or pronoun.

Correct:

She turned off the light.
She turned the light off.

With pronouns (must split):

She turned it off.
She turned ~~off it~~.

Examples:

Phrasal Verb	Example (noun)	Example (pronoun)
turn off	Please, turn off the TV.	Turn it off.
give back	Please, give back the book.	Give it back.
take off	Please, take off your shoes.	Take them off.

2. Inseparable Phrasal Verb

These verbs cannot be split. The object must come after the whole phrasal verb.

She looked ~~the baby after~~.
She looked after the baby.

Examples:

Phrasal Verb	Correct Sentence
look after	I look after my dog.
run into	I ran into an old friend.
get over	He got over the flu.

3. Three-word Phrasal Verb

These phrasal verbs usually include a verb + particle + preposition and are almost never separable.

Examples:

Phrasal Verb	Meaning	Example
look forward to	to be excited about	I look forward to the weekend.
get away with	to escape punishment	He got away with cheating.
come up with	to invent or suggest	She came up with a new idea.

To know whether you can split a phrasal verb of not, check the pages below, or a dictionary directly.

List of Phrasal Verbs

Here’s a list of 10 common Phrasal Verbs and their meanings.

Phrasal Verb	Meaning	Example Sentence
find out	discover or learn something	She found out the answer very quickly.
wake up	stop sleeping	I usually wake up at 6:30 a.m.
hang up	to end a phone call	She hung up before I could say goodbye.
turn on	start a machine or device	Can you turn on the radio?
turn off	stop a machine or device	Don’t forget to turn off your computer.
sit down	take a seat	Please sit down and wait here.
stand up	rise to your feet	The teacher asked the students to stand up.
write down	make a note	Write down the address so you don’t forget.
check in	register at a hotel or airport	We checked in at the hotel at 3 p.m.
check out	leave and pay at a hotel	They checked out early this morning.