Phrasal-Verbs – Letter D

–  Phrasal-Verbs & Verb Phrases – Letter D  –


(to) Call It A Day – See: Phrasal Verbs – Letter “C”, “Call”

(to) Dampen (one’s) Spirit – This is an idiomatic verb phrase which is used to describe something which makes one depressed.  As “damp” is a word which means:  To be moderately (and usually uncomfortably) wet, and “spirit” is often used to refer to one’s mood or emotions, this phrase is alluding to the way a person might feel on a cool and rainy day when one gets caught in the rain without the proper out-door rain gear.

(to) Disrupt The Flow – This is a phrasal verb which, though it contains the slang term “flow”, is NOT idiomatic.  It is used literally to describe something which cause some sort of disharmony, either to a person, or some action…  “Having to respond to so many emails about things which are not directly related to the actions of my job, greatly *disrupts the flow* of me being able to effectively help people to learn English in an efficient manner.”  –  (See Also:  “Flow”)

(to) Do (one) Good – This is an idiomatic phrasal verb which is usually used as an interjection to tell someone that some thing or activity will have a beneficial effect for that person…  “Realizing that most of the bull-shit that humans think that they absolutely HAVE TO do every day is, actually, just exactly that… “Bull-Shit” will really *do* everyone in the world a lot of *good*!”  –  (Notice that this phrasal verb is separable – meaning that the pronoun or pronoun phrase can go in-between the verb and the adjective.)

(to) Dot All Your “I”s And Cross All Your “T”s – This expression is a verb phrase which is used to mean:  To be very precise, sure, and accurate about something or some action; to ensure that no element or detail is missed.  The phrase comes from the days before computers and type-writers when documents were hand-written, and if even a minor detail was missed (especially in legal documents) it can mean that the whole thing is useless or the end result will not be satisfactory…  “The safety inspector is coming next week and he is really not a nice guy, so we need to make sure that we *dot all our “I”s and cross all our “T”s*.”

(to be) Dragging (one’s) Feet – This is a phrasal verb which comes from the situation wherein, a person is so incredibly tired that while walking, they can’t even pick their feet up enough so that they drag on the ground with each step.  This phrase, then, is used to idiomatically describe the action of, not being very tired, but being very lazy, procrastinating and wasting time by not wanting to do something.  (Imagine the child who is told to go clean his/her room and how they lumber off to do it.)…  “There has been a lot of laziness in this department lately and because of it, we are now way behind schedule.  I expect people to stop *dragging their feet* and do their job on time, and to not complain about it!”  –  (see also “Foot Dragging)

Foot-Dragging – See:  Phrasal Nouns – Letter “F” for “Foot”  –  (Although the word, “dragging appears to be a verb in the continuous or progressive form, and it is hyphenated with the word “foot” making it appear to fit on this page, the word “dragging” is actually in the gerund form, making this term a noun.)

(to) Drop Everything – This is an idiomatic phrasal verb which is used to mean:  to completely stop whatever one is doing, or to stop working on whatever project one is currently in order to do some other action.  This phrase is also very often used as an interjection followed by the reason why someone should do so…  “The boss told me that I should *drop everything* and help him remove the top of hit convertible Mercedes.  He’s going to be pissed when he finds out that we were in the middle of a crucial operation and we will probably loose thousands of dollars in product due to his insatiable need to control everyone.  But I’ve learned that it’s useless to argue with him.”

–  ( Phrasal-VerbsLetter D )  –

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