get through

To successfully deal with a difficult experience, period, or challenge and come out the other side. If you get through something hard, you manage to survive or endure it, often with effort or help from others.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

When 'get through' means to survive or endure a difficult experience, it is inseparable — the object always follows the full phrasal verb and cannot be placed between 'get' and 'through'. You say 'She got through the crisis,' not 'She got the crisis through.' The object, whether a noun or pronoun, must come after 'through'.

Conjugation

Narrative

Marta had been dreading her final teaching practicum all semester. On the morning of the observed lesson, her projector failed, two students started arguing, and she lost her place in her notes. Her hands were sh by the second activity. B she slowed down, im a group discussion instead, and kept going. When the assessor left without a word, she sat alone in the e classroom for a long moment. That evening her mentor called. 'You gough it,' he said simply. 'And next time, it won't feel so impossible.' S , Marta al herself, for the first time all day, to breathe. Ev , she dreaded the next observation already.

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In the winter of 1914–1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance became trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. By November 1915, the ice had crushed the hull entirely and the ship sank. Shackleton and his 27 men were left on the ice with three small lifeboats, dwindling rations, and no means of rescue — no radio signal could reach civilization. Over the following months, Shackleton made a series of exary decisions: he kept a r daily routine to maintain morale, or sports on the ice, and refused to let panic take hold. In April 1916, the men sailed the lifeboats to Elephant Island. Shackleton then took five men on an 800-mile open-boat journey across the most vi ocean on earth to South Georgia Island to get help. Every single member of the expedition survived. No plan had gone right. Everything had gone wrong. B Shackleton's insistence on discipline, small goals, and collective purpose is precisely how the expedition ma to get through what should, by any reasonable measure, have been a f ordeal. S , they geugh , in , against every rational expectation.

To break down means either (1) to stop working properly, as a machine or system does when it fails, or (2) to suddenly lose control of your emotions and start crying. Both senses share the idea of something — a machine or a person — reaching a point where it can no longer hold itself together.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

In its primary senses — stopping functioning or losing emotional control — 'break down' is inseparable: you cannot place an object between the two parts. You say 'she broke down' or 'the engine broke down,' not 'she broke her emotions down.' However, when 'break down' means to divide something into smaller parts or categories, it becomes separable: 'Can you break the report down into sections?' or 'Can you break down the report into sections?' are both correct.

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had held herself together for three weeks after her father's diagnosis — ma appointments, calling relatives, updating insurance forms. She told herself there was no time to feel anything yet. T one Tuesday afternoon, she was washing dishes and a song her father used to hum came on the radio. She turned off the tap, sat down on the kitchen floor, and completely br . Her roommate found her there twenty minutes later and simply sat beside her, saying nothing. So , Priya thought, you don't ch when the walls come down — they choose for you. It was, in its own q way, a ne collapse.

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On the night of June 4, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood before the House of Commons and de one of the most coial speeches of the twentieth century — the 'We shall fight on the beaches' address. What many people do not know is what happened immediately afterward. Churchill walked off the floor of the House, turned to a colleague, and reportedly mu , 'And we'll fight them with the butt ends of broken bottles, because that's bloody well all we've got.' According to close aides, in pr moments during those first desperate months of the war — with France collapsing, Dunkirk barely survived, and invasion seemingly imminent — Churchill did, on at least one occasion, break down in private, weeping openly. He had built a public image of granite-like resolve, b the weight of responsibility for millions of lives took its toll in rooms where no cameras watched. That pr fracture, those moments of breaking down, may have made his public composure more genuine, not less. E the strongest systems — human or mechanical — can reach a point where they simply br .

To use all of something so that there is none left; to have no more of something available. When you run out of something, you have used or consumed the last of it.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

"Run out" is inseparable when used in its core meaning. The object always follows the preposition "of": say "We ran out of water" — never "We ran water out." The phrase "run out" cannot be split by placing the object between "run" and "out."

Conjugation

Narrative

Marta was two hours into her solo road trip across rural Portugal when her phone buzzed a low-battery warning. She'd forgotten her car charger. Worse, she suddenly realised she'd also ru of cash — the last village had no ATM. She pulled over near an olive grove and th calmly: the next town was thirty kilometres ahead. She fl down a passing driver, explained in br Portuguese, and borrowed a pen to write down directions to a petrol station with a money exchange. S crisis, small solution. S , she was back on the road in twenty minutes, th still a little shaken. Ev , she laughed about it later.

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In August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force re from Mons, Belgium, after holding against oving German forces. By the time units reached Le Cateau, many soldiers had run critically low on ammunition — some battalions had fired over 400 rounds per man in a single day. At the Battle of Le Cateau on August 26th, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien made the coial decision to turn and fight rather than continue retreating, partly because exhausted troops could not outrun the enemy, and partly because supply lines had broken down so severely that some units had effectively exhausted their reserves. The battle cost the British nearly 8,000 casualties b bo precious time for the main retreat to continue. Military historians point to this episode as a s example of how running out of essential supplies — ammunition, food, rest — forces commanders into decisions they would never otherwise make. Th a resource ru in the field, options collapse rapidly.

To stop yourself from showing or expressing a feeling, or to prevent yourself from doing or saying something. When you hold back, you keep something under control rather than letting it out freely.

Type

Separable phrasal verb.

Notes

As a separable phrasal verb, 'hold back' can be split by placing a noun object between 'hold' and 'back' — for example, 'She held back her tears' or 'She held her tears back.' When the object is a pronoun, separation is required: you must say 'She held them back,' never 'She held back them.'

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had rehearsed the conversation a hundred times. She needed to tell her older brother that his di comments had been hurting her for years. When she finally sat across from him at their mother's kitchen table, she felt the familiar tightness in her throat. For a moment she almost held back — smiled, changed the subject, let it go again. B this time she let herself speak. Her voice cr once, then st . Her brother went quiet. Ne of them had expected honesty to feel so much like relief. She had chosen, finally, not to ho the si truth.

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Neutral

On the night of April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what would become his final public speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He was exhausted, ill, and had nearly skipped the event altogether. Standing before st sanitation workers — men who had endured violent intimidation for weeks — King spoke about threats on his life and said, with st calm, that he had 'been to the mountaintop' and was no longer afraid to die. Aides present that night later recalled that King w backstage after the speech, overcome by the weight of what he sensed was coming. He did not hold back those pr tears, th for months he had held back his deeper fears from the public platform, pr strength so that others would not lose courage. He was asted the following evening. Y , the episode reveals something true about ho : sometimes what we suppress in front of others costs us greatly in private.