1000 Phrasal Verbs In Context

1000 Phrasal Verbs In Context © Matt Errey 2007

117

1000 Phrasal Verbs in Context S s (6/13)

shut out
It’s very bright in here. Would you mind if I closed the curtains to shut
out the sunlight?

shut out sth/sb
shut sth/sb out
shut sth/sb out of sth
She was so angry with
him that she shut her
husband out of the house.

✍  see also:^ keep out^

shut up
(impolite)

There were some selfish people in the cinema who wouldn’t stop

talking. They made me so angry that I told them to shut up or get out.

shut up

shut sb/sth up

Can you please find a way
to shut your dog up? I
can’t sleep when it barks.

✍  see also:^ pipe down (inf),

quieten down

shut up

Every evening at 8 o’clock he shuts up his shop and goes to the pub to

meet his friends.

shut up sth

shut sth up

They’ve shut the building

up for the weekend, so we

can’t get in until Monday.

✍ 

sign away
Many musicians were ripped off when managers and record companies
talked them into signing away the rights to their music.

sign away sth

sign sth away

He claims he was misled
by a lawyer into signing
his parental rights away.

✍ 

sign off
At the end of his TV show, Larry King used to sign off by saying, ‘See
ya later, alligator.’

sign off
sign off by doing sth
sign off with sth
I sign off emails with
‘Cheers’, but for letters I
often use ‘Best regards’.

✍ ^

sign on
Angie loves teaching English and she’s just signed on for another year’s
work in her school.

sign on
sign on sb
sign sb on
Have they managed to
sign someone on to do the
job yet, or not?

✍  see also:^ sign up^

sign up
Liverpool Football Club has just signed up three new players for next
season.

sign up
sign up sb
sign sb up
The army’s had trouble
signing new recruits up
since the war began.

✍  see also: sign on

sing along
I’ll sing a song, but only if everyone else sings along with me. sing along^
sing along with sb/sth

We had a great time
singing along with some
of our favourite songs.

✍ 

sink in /
into

When I told my wife that we’d won the lottery, she sat there staring. But

when it finally sank in, she started clapping and screaming.

sink in

sink into sth

It took a while for what
she’d said to sink into my
tired, old brain.

✍ 

sit around
Sometimes Ben watches his cat and the way it just sits around all day
looking content, and he thinks it must nice being a cat.

sit around

Does he really think he’d
be happy just sitting
around all day?

✍  see also: hang around,

laze around