Hi.
In today's lesson, it's a little bit of a special treat for you guys.
I know you guys love the phrasal verbs, but a little bit different.
What's different about these phrasal verbs is that they don't actually use a verb.
They use a noun with a preposition, and together these work to create a verb.
Even more special is the fact that all of them include an animal.
So, I take an animal, add a preposition, and you get a completely different verb than you
Some of them you can guess because of the animal's nature, but most of them you're going
So, we're going to look at "pig out", "wolf down", "fish for", "horse around", "monkey
with", "ferret out" - ferrets is an interesting animal - "chicken out", "clam up", "weasel
out", usually you weasel out of something, "squirrel away" - this is a tricky word, squirrel
- "bear with", "duck out", and "rat on".
Okay?
So, these are the animals we're looking at, and I'll explain to you each one.
So, "pig out" and "wolf down", they're kind of similar.
They both have to do with eating.
If you "pig out", it means you're eating a lot, because the idea is that pigs eat a lot,
they're always eating, always eating.
So, if you "pig out", you're eating a lot.
If you "wolf" something down, it means you're eating it very fast.
So, some people wolf down their food that they're pigging out on.
They can do both things at the same time.
So, for example, if you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, you go to a restaurant, you pay one
price and there's all kinds of tables full of food, and you can eat as much as you want,
so a lot of people go to these buffets and they just pig out on all the food.
If you're really, really, really hungry and you go to a restaurant or you go home and
you make yourself a meal, and then you just wolf it down, you eat it right away, it's
Okay?
So, that's what these two phrasals mean.
"Fish for", this is a little bit tricky.
If you're thinking about fish and you think about fishermen, they have a rod and a line
and they throw the hook and the bait into the water, and they're fishing for something.
They want to try to catch some fish.
So, when a person fishes for something, they're trying to catch some information or some detail
So, if your friend is asking you a lot of different questions, it sounds...
It seems to you like they're trying to get something specific, then they are fishing
They're trying to catch something from you.
If you're "horsing around", this one's a little bit hard to guess.
A horse just runs around and playfully.
If you're horsing around, you're just playing with someone or something.
If you go to your friend and you're like, you know, push him, but for fun, not for...
Not angry or anything, just push him or you do some little trick or have some fun with
somebody, you're just horsing around.
You're not serious, you're just playful, having a good time.
Okay?
Now, a lot of people, especially men, they like to get into their car engine, for example,
or into their home stereo, and they go inside and they bring their tools and they're, you
know, they're trying to fix something, they're trying to change something because they think
they really know the engine, they really know mechanics.
What they're really doing is monkeying around.
They monkey with the engine because at the end of the day, they don't actually know what
they're doing, they're probably going to make some mistakes.
Like a monkey, fixing the engine is the same as a person who doesn't know engines fixing
So, if you're monkeying around, you're doing little changes and little fixes, but you don't
really know what you're doing.
Now, first of all, what is a ferret?
It's a little bit hard to explain.
I recommend that you get on your...
Get on the internet and do a Google search or whatever search you use and look at a picture
It looks a little bit like a rat, but it's longer, and it has fur, and you know, it like
walks around all over the place and does all kinds of little things.
Now, if you've ever seen a ferret in action, like a real ferret, they go into every little
corner looking for stuff, looking for food, looking for something.
So, if you ferret something out, it means you, like, discover.
You ferret out the information, you ferret out the secret, you ferret out something.
You discover something, like a little ferret that goes everywhere.
Okay?
They're kind of cute, but not that much fun.
"Chicken out".
Now, a lot of people probably heard of the word "chicken" to mean, like, a coward or
somebody who's afraid of something.
So, if you chicken out of a situation or a...
You want to do something or you promise to do something and then you chicken out, it
means that you decided not to do it because you were too afraid.
Okay?
So, a lot of people, they say, "Yeah, this year I'm going to go on the big roller coaster",
and then they go to the amusement park and they get to the roller coaster, and they look
up and they see the big drop, and they say, "Hmm, maybe no.
They didn't go on it because they were too afraid.
Okay?
"Clam up".
A clam, like seafood, it's like this shell and it opens and closes, and there's some
So, if you clam up, then you - basically, you don't speak.
Your lips close like a clam and no sound comes out.
Two ways to use this expression.
If you tell someone to clam up, which is a little bit old-fashioned, you don't hear people
saying that anymore, but you used to hear some teacher say it, "Clam up", means "shut
up", means "close your mouth, stop talking".
But if a person clams up, it means maybe they got really nervous and they just - they couldn't
So, if - again, in school, if your teacher calls on you to answer a question and you
clam up, it means you get really tight and quiet and don't say anything.
If you go to a job interview and the interviewer asks you questions and you clam up, not a
very good sign that you'll be a good worker, so make sure you speak well.
Okay?
A weasel is very similar to a ferret.
Again, you can do a search for what a weasel looks like.
A weasel is a little bit bigger than a ferret.
Now, a weasel can basically get into every little space - it's a wild animal.
You won't - like, a ferret, some people have as pets.
Weasels you can't have as a pet.
But it knows how to get into places and it knows how to get the food and it knows how
to get away from a predator, another animal that's trying to catch it.
So, when we say "weasel out of", it means we can find, like, a little bit of a sneaky
way or we can find our way out of a difficult situation.
So, the boss in your company, the boss wants somebody to work on the weekend.
And you say, "Oh, you know, my mother is sick, I've got to go take care of her", so you weaseled
out of the situation and somebody else had to come in and work because you didn't want
So, you weaseled out of having to work on the weekend.
Okay?
You found a sneaky way to get out.
Squirrels also look a little bit like rats, but they have a big tail, very furry.
They climb up trees and they eat nuts.
In Canada, we have a lot of them.
They're kind of cute, but stay away from them.
So, if you squirrel something away - so, squirrels, if you ever see how they collect food, they'll
take a nut, they'll put it in one cheek, it blows up like this, and then they'll take
another nut, put it in another cheek, then another nut, and then they go up to the tree
and they hide the nuts for the winter.
So, if you squirrel something away, it means you're saving it.
So, some people squirrel away a few dollars every month for a vacation or for retirement
So, basically it means squirrel away, save a little bit.
Okay.
So, a bear, everybody knows a bear.
If you bear with something, it means you endure it or you tolerate it.
So, if you have pain, you have to bear with the pain until the doctor can come and fix
Sometimes you can just say, just bear the pain, but if you bear with, you can bear with
the doctor fixing stuff, you can bear with a situation, you can tolerate or endure usually
Now, if you ever hear anybody yelling, duck, automatically go like this, because something
So, to duck means to go like this.
It's also, of course, the animal, like Donald Duck.
But if you duck out of a place, it means you leave without anybody noticing.
So, if you duck out of the party or you duck out of the ceremony, it means you went like
this and nobody could see you, and you left and went your way, and it's all good.
A rat is like a big mouse, grey, long tail, lives in, like, dirty places.
If you rat on someone, it means you tell about them.
They have a secret or they did something bad, and you tell the police, oh, this guy did
Or if the teacher is writing something on the board, and in the back, he or she hears
some giggling, and he turns around, the teacher turns around and says, "Who did that?"
And then one boy or one student says, "Oh, he did it."
So, that first boy rats on the other boy and gets the other boy in trouble, okay?
It's not good to rat on people.
If you can avoid it, avoid it, but sometimes it happens, okay?
We have a whole bunch of new phrasal verbs.
Remember, all the animals are not actually verbs, but when you combine them with these
prepositions, they become verbs with very specific meanings.
And these are very, very common.
You will hear these, native speakers use these all the time, so get familiar with them and
make sure you know how to use them, okay?
Now, if you want to make sure, if you want to practice your understanding of these, go
There's a quiz below the video.
You can test your knowledge of these phrasal verbs.
You can also ask questions if you're not sure about any of these.
If you like the video, give me a like.
Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, and come back for more useful vocabulary and grammar