44 Common English Phrasal Verbs with meanings and examples

Phrasal verbs are defined as a phrase (such as take-off or look down on) that combines a verb with a preposition or adverb or both and that functions as a verb whose meaning is different from the combined meanings of the individual words.

Phrasal verbs are extremely common in spoken English. You may observe that a lot of native English speakers use them frequently in their conversations. More so, using phrasal verbs makes one sound proficient in English.

Thus, most online spoken English classes will encourage to use these as frequently as possible to refine your English communication skills, in some cases students are even encouraged to rote memorize them.

At Speechify, we insist that students first understand the different types of phrasal verbs, understand their usage and meanings. Our online English tutors will then practice spoken English in conversational style online lessons.

There are at least three types of phrasal verb constructions depending on whether the verb combines with a preposition, a particle, or both.

• 1) Verb + preposition (prepositional verbs)

Example- Who is looking after the kids? – after is a preposition that introduces the prepositional phrase after the kids.

• 2) Verb + particle (particle verbs)

Example- Why does he always dress down? – down is a particle, not a preposition.

• 3) Verb + particle + preposition (particle-prepositional verbs)

Example- She is looking forward to a rest. – forward is a particle and to is a preposition.

As a leading online English speaking course, in our experience, we find students benefit from first learning basics and then apply those in sentence constructions. It does require a bit of practice but students do benefit from them in the long run.

Today, we have included 44 most common English phrases with their meanings and examples.

Common English phrases that you can use daily