Phrasal Verbs

You fire off a quick email at work:

"Let's look into this and sort it out tomorrow."

Then you start drafting your CV and suddenly feel you should write:

"I will investigate this and resolve it tomorrow."

Same idea. Completely different flavour.

If you've ever paused over "put off" versus "postpone," or wondered whether you're allowed to split "turn off" with an "it" wedged in the middle, you're in exactly the right place.

Phrasal verbs — those little verb-plus-up/off/out/in/on combinations — are the backbone of everyday English. Native speakers use them constantly, in conversation and in most emails, messages and reports. But they're also where even confident writers get tangled:

• Can you say "turn it off" and "turn off the light"? (Yes — both fine.)
• Can you say "look the kids after"? (No — never.)
• Is "put up with" one fused unit, or three separate words you can shuffle around? (One unit. No shuffling, ever.)

And there's tone to think about too: phrasal verbs can sound warm and natural, or vague and a bit too casual, depending entirely on where they land.

Let's be honest — nobody's born knowing this. But once you see the patterns underneath, you'll feel a great deal more in control, in both your everyday and your more formal writing.

Before you read on, here's where we're heading. By the end of this article, you'll be able to: - Spot phrasal verbs and tell them apart from an ordinary "verb + preposition." - Use separable phrasal verbs confidently with both nouns and pronouns. - Handle inseparable and three-word phrasal verbs without second-guessing yourself. - Choose between a phrasal verb and a single-word verb to match your tone and audience. - Navigate the small UK/US differences that actually matter, and ignore the ones that don't.

Beginner (Foundation)

If you're feeling rusty with grammar terms, don't worry — we'll build this properly from the ground up.

What is a phrasal verb?

A phrasal verb is a verb combined with one or two short words — usually things like up, out, off, in, on, over — that together act as a single verb with its own specific meaning.

• "Please turn off your phone."
• "We ran into our old neighbour."
• "I need to catch up with my emails."

You can usually look these up in a dictionary as one unit: "turn off," "run into," "catch up with." These short words are called particles when they're doing this job. They often look like ordinary prepositions, but they're not doing the usual preposition job of showing place or time.

Compare:

• Phrasal verb: "He gave up smoking." ("give up" = stop doing something entirely)
• Ordinary verb + preposition: "He put the mug on the table." (on is simply showing where the mug ended up)

If the small word is fused to the verb's meaning, it's a particle, and you're looking at a phrasal verb. If it's just pointing to where, when, or how something happens, it's behaving as an ordinary preposition — a distinction covered properly in our articles on prepositions vs particles and adverbs vs particles, so I won't duplicate that here.

Why phrasal verbs matter at work

They're everywhere in adult, working life:

• At work: "We'll draw up a contract." / "We need to sort out the budget."
• At home: "Can you take out the bins?" / "I'll look after the kids."
• Online: "Thanks for pointing that out." / "This just came up in my feed."

Ignoring them isn't really an option. The trick is understanding how they behave so you can avoid the mistakes that make English sound slightly "off," and — just as importantly — know when to swap one for a more formal single-word verb.

Quick recap: - A phrasal verb = verb + particle(s), acting as one unit of meaning. - The small word may look like a preposition, but here it's fused to the verb's meaning. - "Give up," "turn off," "run into," "catch up with" are all phrasal verbs. - Phrasal verbs are central to natural spoken and written English — you can't avoid them, and you shouldn't want to.

Intermediate (Development)

Now for the practical mechanics: what separable and inseparable actually mean, and exactly how this affects word order.

Separable phrasal verbs

With separable phrasal verbs, the object can go either after the whole phrasal verb, or between the verb and the particle. Take turn off:

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

Both are correct. Which you choose is often just a matter of rhythm.

Now add a pronoun — it, him, her, them, us. Here there's a firm rule: with pronouns, the object must go in the middle.

• "Turn it off." ✅
• "Turn off it." ❌

More examples:

• take off — "Take off your shoes." / "Take your shoes off." / "Take them off." ✅ (never "Take off them")
• fill in [US: fill out] — "Please fill in the form." / "Please fill the form in." / "Please fill it in." ✅
• write down — "Write down the address." / "Write the address down." / "Write it down." ✅

Pro-Tip: If you're ever unsure whether a phrasal verb is separable, try it in a sentence with "it" and see how it sounds. Learners' dictionaries usually mark phrasal verbs as separable or inseparable outright — that's not cheating, that's just using the tool properly.

Other common separable phrasal verbs: bring up (a topic, children) — "She brought it up at the meeting"; give back — "I'll give it back tomorrow"; put off (postpone) — "Let's put it off until next week"; throw away — "Don't throw it away."

Inseparable phrasal verbs

With inseparable phrasal verbs, verb and particle stay glued together, and the object always comes after the full pair:

• "I ran into my manager in the café." (never "I ran my manager into...")
• "We need to look after our clients." (never "look our clients after")
• "She came across an interesting article." (never "came an interesting article across")

Common inseparable phrasal verbs: look after, run into (meet by chance), come across, look for, look into, get over. With pronouns, the pattern holds exactly the same way:

• "I ran into her yesterday."
• "She's looking after them."
• "We came across it at work."

No splitting. Ever.

Three-word phrasal verbs

Then there are the three-word phrasal verbs: verb plus two particles — put up with, look forward to, catch up with, get on with, come up with.

These are always inseparable in the middle: verb and both particles stay locked together, and the object follows right at the end.

• "I can't put up with this noise." / "I can't put up with it."
• "She's looking forward to the trip." / "She's looking forward to it."
• "We need to catch up with our reports." / "We need to catch up with them."

You never break the pair of particles apart, and you never wedge the object between them:

• "I can't put up it with." ❌
• "She's looking forward it to." ❌
• "He came up a great idea with." ❌

Common Mistake: Treating "look forward to" as if that final to were an ordinary preposition free to move around: "I'm looking forward it to." ❌ Keep all three words together, then add the object at the end: "I'm looking forward to it." ✅

Quick recap: - Separable phrasal verbs allow the object between verb and particle, or after them. - With pronouns, the object must sit in the middle for separable verbs ("turn it off"). - Inseparable phrasal verbs keep verb + particle glued; the object comes after. - Three-word phrasal verbs keep all three parts together, with the object right at the end. - Dictionaries label phrasal verbs as separable/inseparable — that information is there to be used.

Advanced (Mastery)

At this level, the interesting question shifts from "Is this grammatical?" to "What does this choice say about my tone, and about how I want my reader to read me?"

Register: phrasal verbs vs single-word verbs

In conversation and most everyday writing — emails, messages, informal reports — phrasal verbs are the default:

• "The meeting's been put off."
• "We'll look into it."
• "Can we sort out the schedule?"

In more formal writing — reports, proposals, legal or academic documents — a single-word verb often reads as more polished:

• "The meeting has been postponed."
• "We will investigate this matter."
• "We must resolve the scheduling conflict."

Rough guide: phrasal verbs are conversational, concrete, sometimes a touch vague; single-word verbs tend to be more formal, often Latinate, and often more precise. You don't have to purge every phrasal verb from a report — that reads as pompous, not professional. Instead, reach for the single-word verb in your key claims and headline sentences, and let a well-chosen phrasal verb sit comfortably in your supporting examples.

Pro-Tip: Build yourself a mental "register pair" list: put off → postpone; look into → investigate; find out → discover/determine; carry on → continue; get rid of → eliminate. When you're editing something formal, you've got the alternatives ready to hand, no thesaurus required.

Nuance and multiple meanings

Many phrasal verbs carry several, sometimes unrelated meanings, and context does all the sorting. Take off: remove ("take off your shoes"), leave the ground ("the plane took off"), become suddenly successful ("her podcast took off"). Pick up: lift, collect a person, improve ("sales have picked up"), or learn casually ("you pick up phrases from films"). This is exactly why dictionary entries for common phrasal verbs run to several numbered senses — don't assume the first meaning you learned is the only one on offer.

Particle vs preposition: the edge cases

Sometimes it genuinely isn't obvious which you're dealing with. Consider:

• "She ran into the room." (direction — a preposition, not a phrasal verb)
• "She ran into her ex-partner." (meaning "met by chance" — a genuine phrasal verb)

Two handy tests, explored in full depth in H6.1 and H4.3:

1. Stress in speech — a phrasal verb often carries the stress on the particle ("She ran INTO her ex"); verb + preposition spreads the weight differently ("She RAN into the ROOM").
2. Movability — a separable phrasal verb lets you shift the object between verb and particle ("turned off the light" / "turned the light off"); an ordinary verb + preposition doesn't allow that at all ("walked up the hill" but never "walked the hill up").

Spoken stress and rhythm

Native speakers often lean hard on the particle in speech: "We can't just GIVE UP." "Let's PUT OFF the meeting." "I'll LOOK INTO it." If you're rehearsing a presentation or a speaking assessment, deliberately stressing the particle makes your English sound more natural and helps your listener catch the meaning instantly.

Common Mistake: Over-formalising everything — swapping out every phrasal verb for a single-word verb in an attempt to sound "professional." This usually backfires and reads as stiff or slightly insincere. The best professional writing mixes both: straightforward phrasal verbs for clarity and warmth, single-word verbs where precision and formality genuinely earn their place.

Quick recap: - Phrasal verbs dominate informal speech and writing; single-word verbs often suit formal contexts better. - Many phrasal verbs carry multiple meanings; context does the sorting. - The particle/preposition distinction explains some otherwise puzzling word-order rules. - Stressing the particle in speech makes your English sound more natural. - Don't over-correct by banning phrasal verbs from formal writing — be selective, not exhaustive.

UK vs US Usage

On the whole, UK and US English treat phrasal verbs identically at the level of grammar. Separable vs inseparable, three-word verbs, pronoun placement — none of that changes crossing the Atlantic. You'll hear "Turn it off," "We'll look into it," "I can't put up with this," and "I'm looking forward to it" on both sides, unchanged.

Where things genuinely shift is preference and spelling.

Preference. Sometimes one variety favours a phrasal verb where the other reaches for a single-word verb, or a different phrasal verb entirely:

• UK: "He rang up his friend." US: more likely "He called his friend" (no particle at all).
• UK: "Please fill in the form." US: "Please fill out the form." Same idea, different favourite.
• UK: "The meeting's been put off." US: "The meeting's been pushed back" or "postponed."
• UK: "We might take on new staff." US: "We might hire new staff."

All of these are understood everywhere; they simply sound a touch more local in one place than the other. If you're writing for a specific audience, mirror their style. If you're not sure who's reading, don't overthink it — clarity beats regional flavour every time.

Spelling. Differences show up mainly in the single-word alternatives, not the phrasal verbs themselves:

• UK: "The event was cancelled." US: "The event was canceled."
• UK: "We will organise a follow-up." [US: organize]

The phrasal verbs — call off, set up, carry out — don't change spelling at all. So the rules you've just learned will work in both UK and US contexts without modification; just adjust spelling on the single-word alternatives, and tweak your verb choice for local flavour where your audience genuinely cares.

Quick recap: - UK and US English share exactly the same phrasal-verb grammar. - Some phrasal verbs — or their single-word alternatives — are simply more common in one variety. - Spelling differences affect single-word verbs, not phrasal verbs. - For international audiences, prioritise clarity; the underlying rules hold everywhere.

Key Takeaways

• A phrasal verb is a verb + particle combination that behaves as a single verb with its own meaning.
• Separable phrasal verbs allow the object in the middle or after them; pronouns must go in the middle.
• Inseparable phrasal verbs (including three-word ones) never split — the object always follows the whole unit.
• Phrasal verbs are natural and common in everyday and workplace English; single-word verbs often suit very formal writing better.
• UK and US English use the same phrasal-verb structures, with only minor differences in preference and spelling.

Check Your Understanding

1. Identify the phrasal verb and say whether it's separable or inseparable. a) We need to draw up a new contract. b) I ran into an old colleague at lunch. c) They called off the training session.

2. Rewrite each using a pronoun, keeping the word order correct. a) Please switch off the projector. → use "it" b) I'm looking forward to the interview. → use "it" c) We can't put up with this behaviour. → use "it"

3. Choose the more formal alternative for a business report. a) We will look into / check out the incident. b) The event was called off / cancelled due to bad weather. c) We plan to carry out / do further research.

4. Correct the sentences. a) I ran my boss into on the train. b) She looked the customers after. c) We'll put the meeting off it until Friday.

5. Is the underlined word a particle (part of a phrasal verb) or a preposition? a) He turned down the offer. b) He turned down the street. c) The plane took off at noon. d) The cat jumped off the table.

Internal Links

This article should link to:

• H3.1 — verb fundamentals (a refresher on verbs generally, if you need one)
• H3.2 — for how objects relate to verbs
• H6.1 — Preposition or Particle? How to Tell the Difference (the fuller mechanics behind that tricky little word)
• H6.3 — Dependent Prepositions After Verbs (for verbs that need a fixed preposition rather than a true particle)
• H4.3 — Adverbs vs Particles: The Little Words Around Verbs (for distinguishing particles from other small modifiers)

And if you want the groundwork on what a verb actually does before any of this — that's already properly covered in Pillar 1, so I've deliberately left it out here rather than repeat it badly.