English phrasal verbs by level

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a small word (up, out, off, on) that together mean something new: give up, find out, put off. They are everywhere in spoken English, and the meaning is often not the sum of the parts. Here they are sorted by the level at which you are likely to need them.

About the levels: Recommended learner level (estimate from two models + word-level floor), not an official CEFR grading.

How to learn phrasal verbs

Separable or not? Some phrasal verbs let the object sit between the two parts (pick the book up), some never do (look after the kids). Every entry says which. With a pronoun, a separable verb must split: pick it up, not pick up it.

One phrase, several meanings. You pick something up from the floor, you pick up milk on the way home, and you can pick up a cold. Each meaning is listed separately, with its own examples, because they have to be learned separately.

Learn them in sentences, not pairs. A phrasal verb learned as "give up = stop" gets used in the wrong pattern. Learn the example sentence, then make one of your own.

Phrasal verbs by level

• A1–A2: 216 phrasal verbs add up something / add something up, arrive at something, back off, back up, be good for something, be with someone, bend over, blow something out, blow something up, bring someone/something with (you), bring something back, bring something in
• B1: 535 phrasal verbs add up, ask someone out, back (something) in, back (something) out, back away (from someone/something), back out (of something), base something on something, be about something, be all about something/doing something, be all about something/someone, be around, be around someone
• B2: 357 phrasal verbs account for someone or something, account for something, act on something, aim at something / doing something, allow for something, answer for something, answer to someone, answer to something, arrive at something, ask for something, attend to something/someone, back away (from something)
• C1–C2: 63 phrasal verbs attend to someone, back into something, blow out, break someone up, call something out, come up, cry out for something, dig up something, dispose of something, do away with someone, do for someone, do someone for something

See the collocations list

Meanings adapted by MindDory from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). This list is shared under the same licence.