A phrasal verb is a verb that consists fo two or three words. Most phrasal verbs consist of two words the first word is a verbs, and the second word is a particle. The particle is either an adverb or a preposition. Examples of common phrasal verbs include get up, go off, turn on, make out, and deal with. There are also some three-word phrasal verbs, for example catch up with, look forward to. An important feature of phrasal verbs is that they are typically idiomatic. Therefore the whole meaning of a phrasal verb cannot be understood by simply putting together the meanings of its individual parts. For example, the meaning of carry out (=do) in the sentence Scientist carried aout an experiment is not related to the normal meaning of ´carry´ or the meaning of ´out´. Smilarly, you could not guess the meaning of pull up (=stop) in the sentence A car pulled up outside the house from the separate meanings of ´pull´ and ´up´. A phrasal verb such as answer back (=answer rudely) is related to the meaning of the verb ´answer´, but this would not help you to guess the meaning of answer back.
