To do something wrong and escape the punishment it deserved
A three-part verb for doing something wrong and escaping the consequences; it never splits.
Phrasal Verbs
These are the two-part verbs, where a very ordinary verb plus a small word after it produces a meaning you could never guess from the pieces. They fill everyday speech and email, and a dictionary is little help. This subject covers what such combinations mean and the word-order question learners get wrong most often: where the object is allowed to sit. Everything here is B1 and B2, so Vocabulary is the gentler place to begin.
Three-part verbs that never split, and where each sits on the register scale
Ten three-word verbs that never separate, with a register note on where a single-word verb reads better.
The missing second word: complete each two-part verb
Supply the small word that completes each two-part verb; the rest of the sentence tells you which.
The small second word that decides what a verb means
The two-part verbs a beginner meets in the very first week, and why the small word that follows the verb is never decoration.
To waste time on small fiddly things instead of the job
British, informal and affectionately impatient: wasting time on fiddly things instead of the job.
Two-part verbs and their single-word formal twins
Two-part verbs paired with the single Latin-origin word that replaces each one in formal writing.
Separable and inseparable phrasal verbs: the test that tells them apart
Separable and inseparable phrasal verbs explained: the one test that tells them apart, worked examples of each, and the pronoun rule that settles word order.
To think of an idea, plan, or answer
The everyday three-part verb for producing an idea, a plan or an answer.
Where the little word goes in two-part verbs
Where the object goes in two-part verbs - and the one position a pronoun is never allowed to take.
Two-part verbs: where does the pronoun go
Put the two-part verb and its pronoun object in the only order English allows.
The busiest verb and its two-part combinations
The busiest verb in English combined with its small words, one meaning per combination.
To decide to do something later instead of now
A neutral two-part verb for postponing, and where its pronoun object has to go.