Phrasal Verbs

You've heard a teacher say, "Right, everyone — hand in your homework." Nothing strange there. Except — try explaining what "hand in" actually means. Your hand doesn't go anywhere; it means "give to the teacher." You know this instinctively, and you've known it since you were about six.

Here's where it gets trickier. You say "Can you turn off the light?" and "My friends fell out yesterday" — you'd never say "Please deactivate the light" or "My friends had a disagreement," unless you were trying to sound like a Dalek. Phrasal verbs are right at the heart of real English, but they play by rules that aren't always obvious: sometimes the little word can move, sometimes it can't, and sometimes you need two of them stuck together. Once you can see separable and inseparable verbs for what they are, it all starts to make sense.

What is a phrasal verb?

A phrasal verb is a verb joined to one or two small words — up, off, on, out, in, away, down — that together make a new meaning. Grammar books call that small word a particle.

• "Please sit." → "Please sit down." (verb + particle = a more specific instruction)
• "She looked up at the clock." (literal) vs "She looked up the word." (phrasal verb = search for information)

If you couldn't guess the meaning by adding up the individual words — "run into" doesn't mean "run" plus "into a wall" — you're almost certainly looking at a phrasal verb. Those little words often look like prepositions, but a preposition just shows position: "He put the mug on the table" has no "put on" idiom in it. If it can be looked up in a dictionary as one expression ("turn off," "give up"), it's a phrasal verb.

Separable vs inseparable

Some phrasal verbs let their object sit in the middle; others insist on staying stuck together. With separable verbs you have three moving parts — verb, particle, object:

• "Turn off the light." → verb – particle – object
• "Turn the light off." → verb – object – particle

Both are correct. But here's the rule that fixes almost every mistake in this area: when the object is a pronoun (it, him, her, them, us), it has to sit in the middle.

• "Turn it off." ✅ — never "Turn off it." ❌
• "Take them off." ✅ — never "Take off them." ❌

Say the wrong ones out loud and your own instinct tells you before any rule does. Common separable verbs: turn off/on, pick up, take off, write down, put away, give back, throw away.

Inseparable phrasal verbs stay welded together, and the object — noun or pronoun — always comes after the whole unit:

• "I ran into my teacher." (never "I ran my teacher into…")
• "She looked after the baby." → "She looked after him."

Common inseparable verbs: look after, run into, come across, get over, look for, look into. There's no middle for a pronoun to sneak into.

Three-word phrasal verbs

Some phrasal verbs come with two particles glued on — put up with, look forward to, get on with, catch up with. These are always inseparable, and the object always goes right at the very end, after both particles:

• "I can't put up with this noise." / "I can't put up with it."
• "She's looking forward to the holidays." / "She's looking forward to it."

You never drop a particle and you never wedge the object between them:

• "I can't put it up with." ❌ — "I can't put up with it." ✅

The two small words act as a fused pair. If you're unsure whether something is a genuine three-word phrasal verb, a good dictionary marks it clearly — the fuller mechanics belong to our articles on prepositions vs particles and dependent prepositions.

Casual or formal?

In speech and casual writing — texts, messages, chatting with mates — phrasal verbs are the natural choice. In essays, reports and exam answers, there's often a single, more formal word waiting:

• "The match was called off." → "The match was cancelled." [US: canceled]
• "We need to sort out this mess." → "We need to resolve this issue."

The single word usually reads as more precise — the kind of thing exam markers quietly notice. That doesn't mean stripping every phrasal verb out; that just makes writing stiff. Lean formal at important moments (an opening claim, a conclusion); let phrasal verbs sound natural in dialogue and relaxed passages.

Common Mistake: Assuming one phrasal verb = one fixed meaning. Many carry several: take off can mean remove ("take off your shoes"), leave the ground ("the plane took off"), or become successful ("her channel took off"). Only context — or a good dictionary — tells you which one is in play.

Quick check

1. Name the phrasal verb and say whether it's separable or inseparable.
a) She looked after her little brother.
b) Please turn off your phone.
c) I'm really looking forward to the trip.

2. Rewrite using a pronoun, keeping the word order correct.
a) Turn off the TV. → use "it"
b) I ran into my cousin. → use "her"
c) I can't put up with this noise. → use "it"

3. Choose the more formal option for a school essay.
a) The experiment was put off / postponed.
b) We will look into / check out this problem.

Where next

• verb fundamentals (for readers who want a refresher on verb basics)
• Transitive vs Intransitive Verbs — for how verbs and objects relate to each other
• Preposition or Particle? How to Tell the Difference (the fuller mechanics behind the distinction touched on above)
• Dependent Prepositions After Verbs (for verbs that need a specific preposition rather than a true particle)
• Adverbs vs Particles: The Little Words Around Verbs (for the deeper grammar of these small words)