Drink Up

Summer is almost here which is making me think about nice iced coffees, fun cocktails, and cold-pressed juices. Although these are probably drinks you can enjoy all season round, I prefer to have drinks that are hot during the cooler weathers: hot tea, hot coffee, hot chocolate. In thinking about drinks I'm craving this summer, let's talk about a common phrasal verb related to drinking: drink up!

I talk about phrasal verbs a lot on my blog because it's very important when learning English. We can learn the individual meaning of words, such as "drink" but when we put it with another word such as, "up," it will carry a different meaning. Phrasal verbs are short phrases usually consisting of two words made of a verb and an adverb or preposition.

You may know the word "drink" is to take liquid into your mouth and swallow. Drink water, drink juice, drink wine. The phrasal verb to "drink up" means to drink all of something completely.

There are usually three ways we can use this. To drink up or drink something up or drink up something.

In the present simple we use drink up or drinking up in the -ing form. The past simple of this phrasal verb is drank up (The milk was going bad so I drank it all up).

EAT UP is another phrasal word that's very similar. Instead of drinking something completely, we eat something completely.
"Eat up! This is your last meal of the day!"
"Eat your vegetables up!"

If you'd like to look at some other common phrasal verbs in English, the English Club has a great table here.