20+ Useful Animals Phrasal Verbs in English

Animal Phrasal Verbs! List of commonly used animals phrasal verbs with their meaning, ESL pictures and example sentences in English.

Learn more animal expressions with useful list of animal idioms in English. 

Animals Phrasal Verbs

List of Animal Phrasal Verbs in English.

  • Chicken out
  • Duck out
  • Fish for
  • Fish out
  • Horse around
  • Leech off
  • Pig out
  • Wolf down
  • Monkey around
  • Beaver away
  • Ferret out
  • Worm out of
  • Rat on
  • Rabbit on (UK)
  • Monkey with
  • Turn turtle
  • Squirrel away
  • Drone on
  • Clam up
  • Ferret around
  • Lark about/around (UK)

Animals Phrasal Verbs with Meaning and Examples

Chicken out

  • Meaning: Not do something because you’re afraid
  • Example: I was going to go bungee jumping but I chickened out at the last minute.

Duck out

  • Meaning: Leave quickly and unannounced
  • Example: If I can I’ll duck out to get something to eat.

Fish for

  • Meaning: Ask for or try to get something in an indirect way
  • Example: The telephone caller was fishing for too much information, so I hung up.

Fish out

  • Meaning: Pull something out of a place
  • Example: She fished a piece of paper out of the pile on her desk.

Horse around

  • Meaning: Play in a loud/rough way
  • Example: He was horsing around in the kitchen and broke my favourite bowl.

Leech off

  • Meaning: Use someone, or cling to s.o for personal gain, often not giving anything in return
  • Example: He’s leeching off the abilities of others.

Pig out

  • Meaning: Eat a lot of food at once
  • Example: Kids tend to pig out on junk food.

Wolf down

  • Meaning: Eat very quickly
  • Example: Don’t wolf down an entire chocolate cake; you will get indigestion.

Monkey around

  • Meaning: To do things in an unserious way; to play or waste time
  • Example: We just monkeyed around all afternoon.

Beaver away

  • Meaning: Work hard doing something
  • Example: She was beavering away at his homework until after midnight.

Ferret out

  • Meaning: To find (something, such as information) by careful searching.
  • Example: I had to ferret out all the information for myself.

Worm out of

  • Meaning: Draw or manipulate information out of someone
  • Example: I eventually managed to worm a few details out of her.

Rat on

  • Meaning: Inform on (someone) to a person in a position of authority
  • Example: I never thought John would rat on me.

Rabbit on (UK)

  • Meaning: Continue talking about something that is not interesting to the person you are talking to
  • Example: John’s always rabbiting on about his coin collection.

Monkey with

  • Meaning: Bother or interfere with someone or something
  • Example: Come on, don’t monkey with my new laptop.

Turn turtle

  • Meaning: Turn upside down; to flip over
  • Example: A large wave caused our little boat to turn turtle.

Squirrel away

  • Meaning: Stash, hide or hoard something for future use
  • Example: He had bits of string, cans of nails and lots of other useful tidbits squirreled away throughout his garage.

Drone on

  • Meaning: Talk for a long time in a boring way
  • Example: I nearly fell asleep while he was droning on!

Clam up

  • Meaning: Become silent; to stop talking, to shut up
  • Example: She just clams up if you ask her about his family.

Ferret around

  • Meaning: Search for something by sorting through materials
  • Example: We need to know more about this new chap. Why don’t you go to his home town and ferret around a bit?

Lark about/around (UK)

  • Meaning: Behave in a silly way because you think it is funny
  • Example: A couple of boys were larking about in the pool.

Useful Animals Phrasal Verbs in English | Images

Animals Phrasal Verbs in English | Image 1

Useful Animals Phrasal Verbs | ImagesPin

Animals Phrasal Verbs in English | Image 2

Animals Phrasal VerbsPin

Phrasal Verbs that Involve the Names of Animals | Video

https://youtu.be/wu290egbqFE

Last Updated on July 16, 2022

4 thoughts on “20+ Useful Animals Phrasal Verbs in English”

  1. I would like to add some more:
    worm out
    rat on
    rabbit on
    worm your way in
    lark about/around
    drone on
    clam up
    monkey with
    squirrel away
    ferret about/around

    these are a horse of a different color, but somehow worth mentioning
    eat crow
    egg on
    beef up
    catnap
    turn turtle
    claw back
    nest egg
    to parrot
    to ape

    Reply

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