Phrasal Verbs with Put: 13 Meanings You Actually Need
Put is the verb of placing: something goes from your hands to a position, and it stays there. The phrasal verbs build on that picture. Put on places clothes on your body. Put away places things back where they live. Put off places an event later in the calendar, and put aside places money where you will not touch it.
One member of the family refuses to fit the picture, and it is the most famous: put up with. Nothing is being placed anywhere. It has to be learned as a single unit, which is the story of phrasal verbs in one example.
The 13 phrasal verbs with put
Nearly all of these are separable; the striking exception is put up with. The rule for the separable ones is in the separable phrasal verbs guide: an object can go in the middle or after, but a pronoun must go in the middle.
| Phrasal verb | Meaning | Example | Separable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| put on | ; | Put your coat on; it is cold. | |
| put off | ; | The match was put off until Sunday. | |
| put up | ; | They put up a tent by the river. | |
| put up with | I cannot put up with this noise. | , | |
| put out | Firefighters put the fire out quickly. | ||
| put away | Put your toys away, please. | ||
| put back | Put the book back on the shelf. | ||
| put down | ; | She could not put the book down. | |
| put through | Can you put me through to sales? | ||
| put together | assemble | It took an hour to put the desk together. | |
| put forward | He put forward a new plan. | ||
| put aside | ; disagreement | They put aside money every month. | |
| put in | ; | We had a new boiler put in. |
The three you must know
. The opposite of take off, and the everyday verb for dressing: put on your shoes, put your jumper on, put it on. It also switches things on: put the kettle on, put some music on, which in British homes may be the most spoken phrasal verb of all. One more meaning is worth knowing: put on weight means to become heavier.
. Two meanings, both constant. First, delay: we put off the decision, the trip was put off until spring. When another verb follows, it takes -ing: stop putting off going to the dentist. Second, to make someone lose interest or appetite: the smell put me off my food, do not be put off by the price. Context separates the two without any effort.
. To accept something annoying because complaining will not help: noisy neighbours, a slow train, a colleague's moods. How do you put up with it? The grammar is strict: three words, that order, the annoying thing last. It is also the classic exam example of a phrasal verb whose meaning you cannot guess from its parts, so examiners love it and so should you.
British and American differences
- meaning to discourage is used everywhere but is noticeably more British: the crowds put us off going. American English often says discouraged or turned off instead.
- / . The British phrase for changing to winter and summer time. Americans usually set the clocks back and ahead.
- has an extra informal British meaning: to be put out is to be a little offended: She was quite put out that nobody phoned.
Common mistakes
- Put off it. Pronouns go in the middle of separable verbs: put it off, put them away, put it back.
- Dropping the with. I cannot put up this noise says you cannot build the noise, which is not your problem. The complaint needs all three words: put up with.
- Put off to do something. After put off, use -ing: he put off writing the report. The pattern is covered in gerund and infinitive.
- Confusing put up and put up with. We put up our guests means they slept at our house. We put up with our guests means we did not enjoy it. Choose carefully; only one of these can be said to their faces.
More phrasal verb families
The full system is explained in the phrasal verbs guide, and the phrasal verbs examples list shows hundreds more in real sentences.