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50+ English Phrasal Verbs in Use: Health, Crime, in the Kitchen, Environment and Animals

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Learn English Phrasal Verbs in Use: Health, Crime, in the Kitchen, Environment and Animals.

Phrasal verb is the name given to an English verb which is composed of two or three words.

English Phrasal Verbs: Animals

Useful ANIMALS Phrasal Verbs 

Chicken out   

  • Not do something because you’re afraid

E.g: I was going to go bungee jumping but I chickened out at the last minute.

Duck out

  • Leave quickly and unannounced

E.g: If I can I’ll duck out to get something to eat.

Fish for

  • Ask for or try to get something in an indirect way

E.g: The telephone caller was fishing for too much information, so I hung up.

Fish out

  • Pull something out of a place

E.g: She fished a piece of paper out of the pile on her desk.

Horse around

  • Play in a loud/rough way

E.g: He was horsing around in the kitchen and broke my favorite bowl.

Leech off

  • Use someone, or cling to s.o for personal gain, often not giving anything in return

E.g: He’s leeching off the abilities of others.

Pig out

  • Eat a lot of food at once

E.g: Kids tend to pig out on junk food.

Wolf down

  • Eat very quickly

E.g: Don’t wolf down an entire chocolate cake; you will get indigestion.

Monkey around

  • To do things in an unserious way; to play or waste time

E.g: We just monkeyed around all afternoon.

Beaver away

Work hard doing something

E.g: She was beavering away at his homework until after midnight.

Ferret out

  • To discover information by searching for it in a determined way

E.g: I had to ferret out all the information for myself.

English Phrasal Verbs: Health

Useful PHRASAL VERBS for HEALTH 

English Phrasal Verbs: Health

Phrasal Verbs: In the Kitchen

Bake off

  • Finish baking partly baked food

E.g: She baked off the cakes in the oven.

Boil away

  • Cause liquid to evaporate completely by boiling

E.g: The soup’s almost boiled away.

Boil down

  • If a food or liquid boils down it becomes less after it is cooked

E.g: Spinach tends to boil down a lot.

Boil over

  • Cause liquid to rise and flow over the side of the container

E.g: The milk was boiling over on the stove behind her.

Bolt down

  • Eat a large amount of food very quickly

E.g: She bolted down her lunch and rushed back to work.

Chop up

  • Cut into pieces, usually with several sharp blows

E.g: Sarah was busy chopping up onions.

Cut off

  • Remove something by cutting it

E.g: You should cut the tops off the carrots first.

Cut out

  • Shape or form by cutting

E.g: She cut several pieces of pastry out.

Cut up

  • Cut something into small pieces

E.g: He cut the pie up into little pieces.

Eat out

  • Eat in a restaurant instead of at home

E.g: Do you feel like eating out tonight?

Eat up

  • Eat all of something

E.g: Eat up! We’ve got to go out soon.

Fry up

  • Cook something by frying

E.g: Let’s fry some chicken up for dinner.

Pick at

  • Eat only small amounts of a meal

E.g: Most of the time he just picks at his food.

Pig out

  • Eat an extremely large amount of food

E.g: Kids pigging out on junk food and soda.

Slice off

  • Cut something from a larger piece

E.g: She sliced off a piece of sausage.

Whip up

  • Quickly make a meal or something to eat

E.g: She whipped up a delicious lunch for us in 15 minutes.

Phrasal Verbs: Environment

Wipe out

  • Destroy something completely

E.g: Whole villages were wiped out by the earthquake.

Break down

  • Decompose, when something slowly reduces to its smallest parts

E.g: A plastic pot may take more than a million years to be broken down.

Scale back

  • Make something smaller in size, amount, etc. than it used to be

E.g: The British Army intends to scale back on its use of petrol-driven vehicles and soon we may seeing British soldiers going to war on bicycles.

Used up

  • Exhaust of strength or useful properties

E.g: We’ve already used up earth’s resources for 2016.

Throw away

  • Get rid of something that you no longer want or need

E.g: Don’t throw away your grass clippings; leave them on your lawn.

Run out of

  • Finish the supply of something

E.g: What will we do when we run out of gas?

Die out

  • Stop existing

E.g: This species has nearly died out because its habitat is being destroyed.

Spread out

  • Cover a large area

E.g: Because our population is so densely concentrated, a new disease like bird flu can spread out very quickly after the first case has appeared.

Rely on

  • Need or depend on somebody/something

E.g: We won’t have to rely on power companies if we use solar and wind power instead.

Phrasal Verbs: Crime

Break into

  • Enter a building or car by using force, in order to steal something

E.g: Someone broke into my car and stole the radio.

Break out of

  • Escape from a prison

E.g: Three men have broken out of a top-security jail.

Tip off

  • Warn somebody about something that is going to happen, especially something illegal

E.g: Two men were arrested after police were tipped off about the raid.

Stake out

  • Watch a place secretly, especially for signs of illegal activity

E.g: Detectives had been staking out the house for several weeks.

Bring in

  • Bring somebody to a police station in order to ask them questions or arrest them

E.g: Two men were brought in for questioning.

Lock up

  • Put someone in prison

E.g: Rapists should be locked up.

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