Welcome back! In Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series, we collected 150 phrasal verbs together — the ones for waking up, working, travelling, loving, arguing and everything in between.
But English is generous, and native speakers still had plenty of favourites left over. So here are 50 more phrasal verbs that people use every single week, at home, at work and on the road.
Just like before, the verbs are sorted into five friendly groups of ten, and every verb comes with a simple meaning and one clear example.
Here’s my honest advice: don’t try to swallow all 50 in one sitting. Learn one group, then write your own example sentence for each verb — a sentence about your life, your family, your street. A phrasal verb inside your own story is very hard to forget. And if you enjoy learning like this, our English phrases for daily conversation makes a lovely next stop after this list.
One small secret before we begin: the little second word — the particle — often carries a feeling you can learn to sense. Up often means finishing something completely, out often means becoming visible or moving away, and off often means leaving or separating.
You’ll feel it in this list: we heat soup up until it’s fully hot, fires break out where everyone can see them, and cars drive off into the distance. Keep that feeling in mind as you read — it turns fifty separate verbs into one friendly family, and families are much easier to remember than strangers.
Phrasal Verbs for Daily Life
We start at home, where English is at its warmest. These ten verbs cover getting dressed, visiting friends, and the small troubles of an ordinary day.
- put up with — to tolerate something unpleasant without complaining — I don’t like the noise from the road, but I put up with it because the rent is cheap.
- dress up — to wear smarter or more formal clothes than usual — You don’t need to dress up for the party; just come as you are.
- do up — to fasten something, like buttons, a zip or shoelaces — Do up your coat — it’s freezing outside.
- heat up — to make something hot, or to become hot — I’ll heat up the soup we had yesterday.
- pack up — to put your things into bags or boxes — We packed up our tent and left the campsite before noon.
- drop by — to visit someone briefly and informally — Drop by my office tomorrow and I’ll show you the new designs.
- come over — to visit someone at their home — Why don’t you come over for tea on Sunday?
- show up — to arrive somewhere, especially when people are waiting for you — He promised to help us move, but he never showed up.
- stay out — to remain away from home, especially late at night — Don’t stay out too late tonight; you have an exam tomorrow.
- chill out — to relax completely and stop worrying — After a long week at work, I just want to chill out at home.
Talking, Thinking and New Ideas
Some phrasal verbs live in the mind and the mouth. These ten are about finding ideas, explaining things clearly and gently pushing a friend towards a decision.
- come across — to find something by chance, or to meet someone by chance — I came across some old photos while I was cleaning the cupboard.
- think up — to invent or create an idea in your mind — We need to think up a name for the new shop.
- jot down — to write something quickly, before you forget it — Let me jot down your phone number before I lose it.
- read out — to read something aloud so that other people can hear it — The teacher read out the names of the winners.
- spell out — to explain something very clearly and in detail — He spelled out the rules so that nobody could make a mistake.
- dream up — to imagine a new and unusual idea or plan — She dreamed up a clever way to save money on the trip.
- sum up — to give the main points of something in a few words — To sum up, the plan will cost less and finish sooner.
- talk into — to persuade someone to do something they did not want to do — I didn’t want to sing, but my friends talked me into it.
- go on — to continue happening, or to continue doing something — The meeting went on for three hours.
- get across — to make an idea clear so that people understand it — A good teacher knows how to get ideas across simply.
Work, Money and Business
Offices and banks have their own favourite verbs. These ten will help you talk about loans, bills, big decisions and the sad day a business closes its doors.
- take out — to borrow money from a bank, or to get money from an account — They took out a loan to start their business.
- run up — to let a bill or debt grow by spending more and more — He ran up a huge phone bill while travelling.
- bail out — to rescue a person, a company or a bank from money problems — The government bailed out the airline to save thousands of jobs.
- fall through — to fail at the last stage and not happen in the end — Our plan to buy the house fell through at the last minute.
- go under — to fail financially and close (used about a business) — Many small shops went under during the hard years.
- step down — to leave an important job or position — The manager stepped down after ten years in the job.
- sign off — to officially approve something — The boss has to sign off every big payment.
- settle up — to pay everything that you owe to someone — Let’s settle up for dinner before we leave the restaurant.
- pay up — to pay money that you owe, often late or unwillingly — He chased the company for months before they finally paid up.
- rip off — to charge far too much money, or to cheat someone — That taxi driver ripped us off — the ride should cost half that price.
Travel and Getting Around
Journeys run on phrasal verbs: leaving, arriving, being delayed, and bumping into old friends in airport queues. Here are the ten travellers reach for most.
- head out — to leave a place in order to go somewhere — We headed out early to avoid the traffic.
- get around — to travel around a place, or to move from place to place — The metro is the easiest way to get around the city.
- hold up — to delay someone or something — Sorry I’m late — I was held up in a traffic jam.
- take in — to visit and enjoy famous places, sights and views — On our first day in Rome, we took in the Colosseum and two museums.
- come back — to return to a place — She left in June and came back in September.
- drive off — to leave in a car — He got into the car and drove off without saying goodbye.
- pull in — to arrive somewhere in a vehicle (used about trains and cars) — The train pulled in ten minutes late.
- pull out — to leave a station or a parking place in a vehicle — Our bus pulled out of the station at dawn.
- look around — to visit a place and look at the things in it — We spent an hour looking around the old market.
- run into — to meet someone by chance — I ran into an old school friend at the airport.
Problems and Fixing Things
Things break, fires start, plans collapse — and English has a verb for every disaster. These ten describe problems, and the satisfying moment when we take them apart and fix them.
- act up — to behave badly, or (about a machine) to stop working properly — My old car is acting up again — it won’t start in the morning.
- break out — to start suddenly (used about fires, wars and diseases) — A fire broke out in the kitchen of the hotel.
- cut off — to stop the supply of something, like electricity, water or a phone line — They cut off our water because we forgot to pay the bill.
- go wrong — to develop problems, or to not happen in the way you planned — Everything went wrong on the day of the wedding.
- mess up — to do something badly, or to make a mistake — I really messed up the exam — I answered the wrong questions.
- put out — to stop a fire or a candle from burning — Firefighters quickly put out the fire.
- put together — to build or assemble something from separate parts — It took us all evening to put the new cupboard together.
- take apart — to separate something into its pieces — He took the clock apart to see why it had stopped.
- fix up — to repair something and make it look better — They fixed up the old house and sold it for a good price.
- knock down — to destroy a building, or to hit someone or something to the ground — They knocked down the old factory to build a park.
Ten to Learn First
Fifty is a feast, so if you’re wondering where to start, start here. These are the ten I’d teach first — the ones you’ll hear this week, I promise. And if you’re ever unsure how one of them behaves, the Cambridge Dictionary entry for put up with shows you the pattern: meaning, grammar and examples, all on one tidy page.
- show up — Because people are always arriving, late or never.
- put up with — The natural way to talk about tolerating annoying things.
- come across — How everyone describes finding something by luck.
- run into — The friendly way to say you met someone by chance.
- go on — Two small words that mean both “continue” and “happen”.
- fall through — The standard way to say a plan quietly died.
- come back — Simple, warm, and used in every return story.
- get around — Essential for talking about travel in any city.
- mess up — The honest, everyday way to admit a mistake.
- chill out — The kind way to tell a friend — or yourself — to relax.
A Small Warning About Word Order
One little trap before you go. Some phrasal verbs can split: the object can sit between the verb and the particle. With put out, you can say “Put out the candle” or “Put the candle out” — and with a pronoun, the split is the only choice: “Put it out,” never “Put out it.”
It’s the same with take apart: “He took the clock apart,” and “He took it apart.”
Other verbs never split. The object must stay after the whole verb: “I came across an old photo” — never “I came an old photo across.” And put up with holds together too: “We put up with the noise,” “We put up with it.” The British Council’s guide to word order in phrasal verbs explains this beautifully, with exercises, if you’d like to practise it properly.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many phrasal verbs do I really need to learn?
Fewer than you fear. There are thousands in the dictionary, but a few hundred cover almost everything in daily conversation. Parts 1 to 4 of this series give you 200 of the most useful ones — learn those well, and you’ll follow films, meetings and market talk with a smile.
Are phrasal verbs informal?
Most of them are neutral, and you can use them almost anywhere. A few, like chill out and rip off, are informal, so save those for friends. Very formal writing often prefers single-word synonyms — tolerate for put up with, for example — but in speech, natives choose the phrasal verb nearly every time.
Should I learn them with pictures and stories, or from lists like this one?
Use both, in that order. A list gives you the map; a picture or a tiny story makes the verb stick. When you learn act up, picture your own car refusing to start on a cold morning. Your own example will beat any list — including this one.
Why do native speakers prefer phrasal verbs so much?
History, mostly. Everyday English grew out of short, old words, and joining them together was the natural way to build new meanings. The formal synonyms arrived later, from Latin and French, and stayed in offices and law courts. Phrasal verbs are simply the words people grow up hearing at home.
Where should I go next?
Try our 50 more English collocations (Part 3). Phrasal verbs show you how verbs travel with particles; collocations show you how all words travel together. Learn both, and your English stops sounding translated — it starts sounding lived in.
That’s Part 4 complete: 200 phrasal verbs in the series now. Pick tomorrow’s group of ten, say each one out loud, and use one of them on a real human before dinner.