phrasal verb

Definitions

1. A two-word verb, consisting of a verb and a "small" adverb or particle, that has an idiomatic meaning not easily predictable from the individual parts.
2. A phrase, consisting of a verb with a preposition and/or adverb, that has idiomatic meaning.

Equivalents

Examples

“In 'The police told the driver to pull⟳ over', 'pull⟳ over' is a phrasal verb.”

“In every section of this invaluable work⟳ new light⟳ is thrown on ancient problems - phrasal verbs (bring⟳ up, put⟳ off), phrasal-prepositional verbs (catch⟳ up on, come⟳ up with) [...] duratives, sentence adverbs, and so on.”

“Thus, it would seem that as far as GAPPING is concerned, the whole expression put⟳ off is somehow treated as a single 'compound Verb'. But this is the very intuition which we encapsulated in analysis (125) (b), by giving the sequence [put⟳ off] the status of a single V constituent (i.e. by analysing it as a Phrasal Verb). Thus, facts about GAPPING lend⟳ yet further support⟳ to analysis (125).”

CEFR level