Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs [antikvár]

Foreword THIS DICTIONARY concentrates on one particular aspect of the grammar and vocabulary of English: combinations of verbs with adverbial or prepositional particles. They are extremely common in English. These combinations are generally called phrasal verbs. They are often a particular problem for learners of English. There are several reasons for this. One reason is that in many cases, even though students may be familiar with both the verb in the phrasal verb and with the particle, they may not understand the meaning of the combination, since it can differ greatly from the meanings of the two words used independently. For example, make, put, out, and off are all very common words which students will encounter in their first weeks of learning English, and yet the combinations make out and put off are not transparent. Make out can mean 'perceive' or 'imply', and put off can mean 'postpone' or 'deter', amongst other meanings: these meanings are unrelated to the meanings of the individual words in the combinations. The fact that phrasal verbs often have a number of different meanings adds to their complexity. There are some particular grammatical problems associated with phrasal verbs. For example, there are restrictions on the positions in which an adverb can be placed in relation to the object of a verb. Some particles, such as about, over, round, and through can be used as both adverbs and prepositions in particular phrasal verbs combinations, although in other combinations they are used either adverbially or prepositionally. Some phrasal verbs are not normally used with pronouns as objects, others are normally only used with pronouns as objects. The Extra Column of this dictionary gives detailed information about the grammatical behaviour of phrasal verbs: see pages ix-xvi. There are other difficulties, such as the fact that there are frequently strong collocational associations between phrasal verbs and other words. Thus, in some cases a particular word or small set of words is the only one normally found as the subject or object of a particular verb. We show on page viii how the explanations in the dictionary give guidance on this. It is often said that phrasal verbs tend to be rather 'colloquial' or 'informal' and more appropriate to spoken English than written, and even that it is better to avoid them and choose single-word equivalents or synonyms instead. Yet in many cases phrasal verbs and their synonyms have different ranges of use, meaning, or collocation, so that a single-word synonym cannot be substituted appropriately for a phrasal verb. Single-word synonyms are often much more formal in style than phrasal verbs, so that they seem out of place in many contexts, and students using them run the risk of sounding pompous or just unnatural. We include notes on synonyms and antonyms to help with this. The set of English phrasal verbs is constantly growing and changing. New combinations appear and spread. Yet these new combinations are rarely made on a random basis, but form patterns which can to some extent be anticipated. Particles often have particular meanings which they contribute to a variety of combinations, and which are productive: that is, these fixed meanings are used in order to create new combinations. This dictionary contains an index of the particles, showing the different meanings and listing the phrasal verbs containing those meanings. In this way, you can understand the patterns underlying the combinations, and you can see the relationship in meaning between, for example, cool off, ease off, and wear off, or