Give off – produce a smell or heat
The house gave off a musty smell so we opened the windows.

Narrow down – reduce the number of options
We narrowed down our holiday destinations to either Rome or Paris.

Plug in – connect to electricity
He forgot to plug in his phone, now the battery is dead.

Turn into – change into something different
In Transformers the robots turn into cars.

Turn off – stop a machine working
Don’t forget to turn off the lights before you leave.

Bring up. Look after a child until he or she becomes an adult.
He grandmother brought her up after her parents passed away.

Fall for. Fall in love with or believe a lie, trick…
She fell for everything he said, unfortunately it was all lies.

Look down on. Think that you are better than someone.
They look down on everyone just because they have money.

Stand up for. Support in an argument or fight.
She always stands up for her siblings, even if they are wrong.

Pass away. Die
They lived with their aunt after their parents passed away.

Wipe out: Destroy something completely
The Ebola virus wiped out whole villages, nobody survived.

Break down: Decompose, when something slowly reduces to its smallest parts
In order to determine what it was, we had to break down the components.

Scale back: Make something smaller in size, amount, etc. than it used to be
The company had to scale back on production due to the economic crisis.

Used up: Exhaust of strength or useful properties.
The ground needed to rest for a year as the minerals were used up and nothing would grow.

Spread out: Cover a large area
The internet is spread out all over the world.

Brighten up – illuminate/ lighten
The sky brightened up after the rain and the sun started to shine.

Cloud over – the sky becomes covered with clouds
When it started clouding over we knew we were in for a storm

Clear up – it stops being rainy or cloudy
After five days of rain it finally cleared up.

Warm up – to become warmer
You could see summer was coming when it started to warm up.

Cool down – to become cooler
The weather has cooled down totally, maybe it’s going to rain.