Opaque phrasal verbs — non-compositional meanings

At B2 you learned phrasal verbs whose meaning you can mostly recover from the parts: go up, come back, walk away from, catch up with. The verb plus the particle adds up to roughly what the dictionary says. At C1, the floor changes under you. An opaque phrasal verb is one where the meaning is not the sum of its parts — pan out does not mean “move a frying pan outward” and bear out does not mean “carry something outside.” These verbs behave like single idiomatic units, and to use them at native speed you have to memorize the whole package: form, meaning, register, and the kinds of nouns it likes.

Opaque PVs are where Russian-speaking learners often retreat to a Latinate single-verb equivalent — materialize instead of pan out, confirm instead of bear out, resolve instead of iron out. The single verb is rarely wrong, but it is always slightly off in register. Native speakers reach for the opaque PV when they want a tone that is conversational-yet-precise, business-y, or journalistically vivid. The single Latinate verb pushes the same idea into formal, academic, or stiff territory. Owning the opaque PV is owning the register.

This lesson covers about 19 high-frequency opaque PVs grouped by what they do — they help things succeed, take hold, get resolved, get talked about, get produced, get scaled, get pushed aside, get confirmed, or get reviewed. Each one is presented with definition, two or three real US example sentences, separability and pronoun-position notes, register tags, and AmE-vs-BrE flags where relevant.

Success, survival, failure — pan out, catch on, pull through, fall through

The verbs of things working, taking hold, surviving a crisis, or collapsing.

• pan out (intransitive) — develop in a particular way; turn out as expected; succeed. Comes from gold panning (“does this pan yield gold?”).
  • We had three offers on the house, but none of them panned out.
  • Let’s see how the new role pans out before we move.
  • The strategy didn’t pan out, so we pivoted.
  • I wasn’t sure the move would pan out, but it ended up being the best decision.
  • Register: casual-business. Avoid in formal academic writing; use materialize or succeed instead. Often paired with the way: the way things panned out, we got lucky.
• catch on (intransitive) — become popular or widely understood; also: realize, finally understand.
  • The app caught on with college students first.
  • Skinny jeans caught on around 2008.
  • It took him a while to catch on, but eventually he saw what I meant. (= second meaning: realize)
  • The idea caught on slowly, then all at once.
  • Register: casual to business. Journalism loves this for trend pieces. The two meanings (become popular; realize) rarely confuse in context — context disambiguates.
• pull through subnote — also used with for: she pulled through for me when I needed her = came through with help when relied on. This is a related but distinct sense.
• pull through (intransitive, or transitive separable with something) — survive (an illness, a crisis); also: cause to survive.
  • Doctors weren’t sure she’d pull through, but she did.
  • The company pulled through the recession with cash to spare.
  • Her family’s support pulled her through.
  • Register: neutral. Common in news and personal narrative.
• fall through (intransitive) — fail to happen as planned (especially deals, plans, agreements).
  • The deal fell through at the last minute over financing.
  • Our weekend plans fell through because of the storm.
  • Two of the three offers fell through within a week.
  • Register: neutral. The standard PV for collapsed plans.

Talking, producing, conjuring — talk shop, drum up, conjure up

The verbs of generating talk, business, or images out of thin air.

• talk shop (intransitive — fixed expression, “shop” is the object but the phrase is frozen) — discuss work-related matters, especially in a social setting where it’s somewhat off-topic.
  • Sorry to talk shop at dinner, but I have to ask about the merger.
  • Engineers love to talk shop at parties.
  • Let’s stop talking shop and order another drink.
  • Register: casual. Slightly self-aware — you usually flag it as a mild apology.
• drum up (separable) — generate (interest, business, support) through active effort.
  • We’re drumming up support for the new policy.
  • She’s drumming up business at trade shows.
  • Let’s drum up some excitement before the launch.
  • Register: business/journalism. Note the metaphor: beating a drum to attract a crowd.
• conjure up (separable) — produce as if by magic; also: evoke (an image, memory, feeling) vividly.
  • He somehow conjured up a venue at the last minute.
  • The song conjures up memories of summer in Vermont.
  • She conjured up a feast from what was in the fridge.
  • The novel conjures up the gritty New York of the 1970s.
  • Register: literary-leaning. Common in journalism and personal essays. The two meanings (produce out of thin air; evoke vividly) often overlap in practice.

Resolving and discussing — iron out, sort out, tease out, hash out, smooth over

The verbs of working through problems, disagreements, and details. The register differences here are critical at C1.

• iron out (separable) — resolve small problems, wrinkles, or differences.
  • We still need to iron out a few issues before launch.
  • Let me iron it out with the vendor.
  • Most of the bugs have been ironed out.
  • Register: neutral business. The metaphor is ironing wrinkles flat.
• sort out (separable) — resolve, organize, or fix (more general than iron out).
  • Let me sort out the schedule and get back to you.
  • We need to sort this out before the meeting.
  • She sorted everything out within an hour.
  • Register: neutral. BrE leans on sort out more heavily; AmE uses it but also says figure out, work out, take care of.
• tease out (separable) — extract carefully, especially something subtle, hidden, or tangled (truth, meaning, implications).
  • The researcher teased out three distinct factors from the data.
  • Let’s tease out what the customer actually wants.
  • It took an hour to tease out the real issue.
  • Register: academic-business. A favorite of consultants, researchers, and journalists.
• hash out (separable) — discuss thoroughly, often messily, to reach agreement.
  • We hashed out the details over a long lunch.
  • Let’s hash this out before the client call.
  • They’re still hashing it out in the conference room.
  • The committee hashed out a compromise after three sessions.
  • Register: business-casual. Implies a working session, not a formal negotiation. The metaphor comes from chopping (hashing) food into small pieces — going through every detail.
• smooth over (separable) — minimize or downplay (a conflict, mistake, or awkward situation) to reduce its impact.
  • She smoothed over the misunderstanding with a quick apology.
  • Don’t try to smooth it over — own the mistake.
  • He’s good at smoothing things over with clients after a bad call.
  • Register: business-relational. Often slightly negative — implies you’re patching cracks instead of fixing them.

Scale and intensity — drum up, ramp up, scale back

The verbs of increasing or decreasing effort, capacity, or scope.

• ramp up (separable, or intransitive) — increase gradually but firmly (hiring, production, effort, intensity).
  • We’re ramping up our content output.
  • The factory is ramping up to full capacity.
  • They ramped up hiring before the launch.
  • Register: business. The metaphor is a ramp — incline going up.
• scale back (separable, or intransitive) — reduce in scope or intensity (while continuing the activity).
  • They had to scale back hiring after the funding round fell through.
  • Let’s scale back the marketing budget for now.
  • We scaled it back significantly.
  • Register: business. Scale down is a near-synonym; scale back implies pulling back from an ambitious plan.

Confirmation, dismissal, review — bear out, brush aside, brush off, brush up on, gloss over

The verbs of confirming evidence, dismissing concerns, or refreshing knowledge.

• bear out (separable — bear out + noun, or bear + noun + out) — confirm (a claim, suspicion, prediction); validate.
  • The data bears out his hypothesis.
  • Subsequent events bore out her warnings.
  • The investigation bore the allegations out.
  • Her fears were borne out within a month.
  • Register: formal/academic/journalistic. Very common in op-eds and research papers. Note the past participle is borne (not born). Often appears in passive: the claim was borne out by the data.
• brush aside (separable) — dismiss (a concern, objection, person) as not worth addressing.
  • The CEO brushed aside questions about layoffs.
  • Don’t brush aside her concerns — they’re legitimate.
  • He brushed the criticism aside.
  • Register: journalistic/business. Slightly negative — implies the dismissal may have been unfair.
• brush off (separable) — dismiss (a person, suggestion, or criticism) more curtly than brush aside; also: shake off (something unwanted).
  • She brushed off my suggestion and moved on.
  • He brushed off the rumors with a laugh.
  • Just brush it off — it’s not worth dwelling on.
  • Register: casual to journalistic. Stronger and more personal than brush aside.
• brush up on (inseparable, three-part) — refresh or review (a skill, language, topic) that you used to know.
  • I should brush up on my Spanish before the trip.
  • She’s brushing up on contract law for the new role.
  • I need to brush up on it before the interview.
  • Register: neutral. Common in professional development talk.
• gloss over (separable) — treat (a problem, flaw, or topic) superficially, intentionally avoiding depth.
  • The report glosses over the safety concerns.
  • Don’t gloss over what happened — explain it fully.
  • He glossed over the awkward parts of the story.
  • Register: critical-journalistic. Almost always negative — implies avoidance.

Confusion table — opaque PVs that get mixed up

Register awareness — when each opaque PV fits

At C1 the question is not just “does this PV mean what I want?” but “does it fit the register?” Here is a rough map.

The single biggest C1 register error: using talk shop in a business email or bear out in a casual chat. The first sounds too casual for written business prose; the second sounds stiff in conversation.

Putting it together — worked paragraph

Here is how a native US business journalist might thread opaque PVs into a single paragraph. Read it slowly and notice how each PV does work no single Latinate verb could do alone.

The merger talks panned out faster than anyone expected. Two earlier rounds had fallen through over governance, and analysts brushed aside the new offer as another false start. But the term sheet bore out what the CEO had been saying for months: this time, the buyer was serious. The deal team hashed out the remaining points over a weekend, ironed out the antitrust language, and teased out a compensation structure that satisfied both sides. Critics will likely gloss over the speed of execution and focus on the price tag, but the integration team is already drumming up support inside both companies. Whether it all pans out long-term depends on culture — and that, no spreadsheet can conjure up.

Every PV in that paragraph is doing precise work. Panned out (succeeded contrary to expectation), fallen through (collapsed before completing), brushed aside (dismissed unfairly), bore out (confirmed by evidence), hashed out (effortful collaboration), ironed out (small fixes), teased out (subtle extraction), gloss over (negative avoidance), drumming up (actively generating), conjure up (evoke from nothing). Replace any with a Latinate single verb and the rhythm and stance collapse.

Common collocations and patterns

Opaque PVs collocate strongly with specific nouns. Memorize the partner, not just the verb.

• pan out + plans / strategy / deal / way (the way things panned out)
• catch on + with + audience (caught on with teens); + to + idea (finally caught on to what was happening)
• pull through + illness / crisis / recession / surgery
• fall through + deal / plan / agreement / negotiation
• drum up + business / support / interest / excitement / enthusiasm
• conjure up + image / memory / feeling / vision / venue
• iron out + details / kinks / wrinkles / bugs / issues
• tease out + meaning / implications / truth / factors / threads
• hash out + details / terms / plan / disagreement
• smooth over + tensions / misunderstanding / conflict / awkwardness
• bear out + claim / hypothesis / prediction / suspicion / evidence
• brush aside + concerns / objections / criticism / questions
• brush off + suggestion / criticism / rumors / advice
• brush up on + language / skill / topic / law
• gloss over + details / flaws / problems / facts / history

If your noun doesn’t appear in the partner list, you’re probably using the wrong PV.

Common Russian-speaker mistakes

1. Replacing every opaque PV with a Latinate single verb. Confirm instead of bear out, resolve instead of iron out, succeed instead of pan out, evoke instead of conjure up. Each substitution is grammatically fine but pushes you into formal register. Native speakers code-switch constantly between Latinate and Germanic-PV vocabulary; C1 means doing the same.
2. Wrong particle on resolve-and-discuss PVs. Hash out with the team (correct) vs hash out the team (wrong — you’re not hashing the team itself). Iron out the details (correct) vs iron the details out (also correct, both word orders work because iron out is separable). Russian speakers sometimes calque the wrong particle: clean out or work out when iron out is the idiomatic choice.
3. Confusing brush off and brush up on. He brushed me off (= dismissed me) ≠ He brushed up on his Russian (= reviewed it). The particles change everything. Russian speakers blur both because the metaphors don’t survive translation.
4. Saying fall down instead of fall through for failed plans. The deal fell down — wrong. The deal fell through. Fall down is physical (a person falls down). Fall through is for plans, deals, agreements that collapse before they happen.
5. Using talk shop in writing or in formal speech. In our annual report, we talk shop about strategy — wrong register. Talk shop is casual and slightly self-aware. In writing, use discuss work matters or focus on operational topics.
6. Calquing gloss over as cover with gloss. Gloss over means to treat superficially, almost always with negative judgment — the writer is criticizing the avoidance. The metaphor is a thin glossy layer hiding what’s underneath, not “polish” in any positive sense.
7. Pronoun position on three-part brush up on. I brushed up on it (correct). I brushed it up on (wrong). I brushed up it on (wrong). The three-part PV stays glued; the pronoun goes at the end. Same rule as B2 three-part PVs.
8. Treating pan out and work out as identical. Work out covers exercise, calculation, solution, and “turn out well.” Pan out is narrower: it refers specifically to how something develops over time. Let’s see how it pans out (= wait and see how it develops) is more idiomatic than Let’s see how it works out in business or news contexts when you mean specifically “will this strategy yield results.”

AmE pronunciation notes

A few opaque PVs have rhythm and stress patterns worth drilling.

• pan out — stress on out: pan OUT. Both syllables are content-bearing, so neither is reduced.
• bear out — stress on out: bear OUT. In the past bore out / borne out, bore and borne are full vowels, not reduced.
• conjure up — stress on con-: CON-jure up. The up is reduced but still audible.
• brush up on — main stress on up: brush UP on. The on is reduced.
• gloss over — stress on gloss: GLOSS over. Over is reduced.

For Russian speakers, the typical residual is putting stress on the wrong syllable, especially on the particle. American native speakers tend to stress the particle in opaque PVs (pan OUT, bear OUT, brush OFF) more than non-natives expect.

Summary

• Opaque phrasal verbs are non-compositional — meaning is not recoverable from the parts. They must be memorized as single units with their preferred noun partners.
• The C1 differentiator is opacity itself: pan out, bear out, tease out, conjure up, gloss over — these are the PVs B2 textbooks rarely cover but native US journalism and business speech rely on.
• Success/failure cluster: pan out, catch on, pull through, fall through.
• Production/talk cluster: talk shop, drum up, conjure up.
• Resolution cluster: iron out, sort out, tease out, hash out, smooth over — not interchangeable; each picks a different texture of working through a problem.
• Scale cluster: ramp up, scale back.
• Confirmation/dismissal cluster: bear out, brush aside, brush off, brush up on, gloss over.
• Register is everything. Talk shop is casual; bear out is formal/journalistic; pan out is mid. Mismatching the register is the most common C1 fluency tell.
• The Russian-speaker trap is reaching for a single Latinate verb. Confirm works, but bear out sounds native; succeed works, but pan out shows you can read the register.

Next lesson: Business PVs advanced — sign off on, follow up on, run by, weigh in on, pivot on, touch base, sync up, loop in, double down on, roll out, scale up/down, dial back, level set, circle back, take a beat, table this.