Phrasal Verbs with Get: 16 Meanings You Actually Need
Get produces more phrasal verbs than almost any other verb in English, and there is a reason. On its own, get carries the idea of : change of place, change of state, change of ownership. Add a particle and you point that change in a direction. Get up is a change of position. Get over is a change from ill to well. Get away is a change from here to somewhere better.
You do not need forty of them. You need the sixteen below, because these are the ones native speakers use in ordinary conversation every single day.
The 16 phrasal verbs with get
Most get phrasal verbs are inseparable: the verb and the particle stay together. The table marks the two that split. If separable and inseparable are new words for you, read separable phrasal verbs first.
| Phrasal verb | Meaning | Example | Separable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| get up | I get up at seven every day. | ||
| get on | , | We got on the train at York. | |
| get on with | ; | She gets on well with her sister. | , |
| get off | , | Get off at the next stop. | |
| get in | ( , , ) | My flight gets in at ten. | |
| get out of | He got out of the meeting by saying he was busy. | , | |
| get over | It took her a month to get over the flu. | ||
| get back | We got back from holiday last night. | ||
| get by | They get by on one salary. | ||
| get through | ; | I finally got through to the bank. | |
| get away | ; | We hope to get away for a few days in June. | |
| get away with | He cheated and got away with it. | , | |
| get round to | I never got round to painting the fence. | , | |
| get across | She got her point across in two minutes. | ||
| get together | , socially | Let's get together on Friday. | |
| get down | This rain is getting me down. |
The three you must know
. The plain meaning is to leave your bed, and it is not the same as wake up. You wake up when you open your eyes; you get up when you actually stand. Many people wake up at six and get up at half past. In everyday talk about your day, get up is close to unavoidable: What time do you get up? I got up late. Getting up in winter is hard.
. Two meanings, both common. With a person, it means to have a good relationship: I get on with my flatmates. Do you two get on? Notice that in questions and short answers the with can drop away. With a task, it means to continue doing it, and it often carries a little impatience: Stop talking and get on with your work. If you learn only one social phrasal verb from this page, learn this one, because English speakers rarely say "have a good relationship" in conversation. They say get on.
. To recover, and not only from illness. You get over a cold, but you also get over a shock, a defeat, a break-up. The pattern is always get over + the bad thing: She never got over the loss. Get over it! That last one, said alone, is informal and a little sharp: it means stop feeling sad about this, it is time to move on.
British and American differences
- / . Same meaning, different homes. British speakers usually say get on with someone; American speakers usually say get along with. Use either; be ready to hear both.
- / . Again the same meaning. Round is the usual British form, around the usual American one.
- for progress is common in British English: How are you getting on? means how is it going, nothing to do with buses.
Common mistakes
- Splitting inseparable . I will get my flu over is wrong. Only get across and get down (make sad) take an object in the middle.
- . He got away it is wrong; get away with keeps all three words. The same goes for get out of and get round to.
- . I woke up at seven says your eyes opened. I got up at seven says you left the bed.
- -ing after get round to. The to here is a preposition, so the next verb takes -ing: I got round to fixing it, never got round to fix it. The same rule drives gerund and infinitive choices everywhere.
More phrasal verb families
Every phrasal verb on this page works the way the phrasal verbs guide explains, and you can see hundreds more in action in the phrasal verbs examples list.