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
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.
