English Idioms and Idiomatic Phrases

Feeding little bird from hand

This unit introduces some common idioms and idiomatic phrases in English. Idioms are expressions whose meaning is not literal but figurative. For example: “The early bid gets the worm.”

Phrasal verbs are verbs that include one or two particles, which change the meaning of the original verb by itself. There are many phrasal verbs used frequently in English. Here are a few examples.

Examples:
She came across an interesting article in the newspaper.
We dropped the kids off at school.
They didn’t look up directions to the festival.

The main verbs “come,” “drop” and “look” have different meanings from the phrasal verbs above:

come across – to find someone or something by chance; to appear a certain way or give a particular impression

drop off – to transport someone or something to a specific destination

look up – to search for information or someone

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Phrasal verbs can be separable or inseparable, meaning that the particle(s) can either occur immediately after the verb or later in the sentence (separable), or they must follow the verb (inseparable). Here are some examples:

Separable – drop off, pick up, take out

Inseparable – come across, get up, sleep in

Some phrasal verbs have two particles. There are not as many of these multi-particle phrasal verbs as those with only one particle. Some common ones include: look forward to, keep in touch, get rid of, come up with.

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