AAAmerican Accent US

look over

Separable

The object can go before or after the particle — but a pronoun MUST go in the middle: “clean it up”, never “clean up it”.

How to say it

Stress the particle, not the verb: look OVER. Saying “LOOK over” is the clearest learner tell — the verb stays light and the particle carries the beat.

Link across the gap. The final /k/ of “look” moves onto the particle and starts its syllable: “look over” is said “loo-kover”. Pausing between the words is what makes phrasal verbs sound recited rather than spoken.

What it means

  1. To examine something fairly quickly.

    • “He decided to look over some other tasks on his to-do list.”
    • “Could you look this over before I send it?”

    Similar: review, scan

Don’t confuse it with

look throughTo examine a collection item by item.

Look OVER is a quick pass across the surface. Look THROUGH goes item by item from start to finish.

The particle logic

over

Something is examined from above, done again, or moved across.

Listen + practice

Hear “look over” spoken naturally

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Read the sentence aloud. Keep the stress on the particle and run the two words together — we’ll score every sound and flag what to work on.

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More LOOK phrasal verbs

Compare the whole family →

look up

To search for information in a reference source.

look for

To search for something or someone.

look after

To take care of someone or something.

look forward to

To feel pleased about something that is going to happen. Always followed by a noun or an -ING form, never an infinitive.

look up to

To admire and respect someone.

look down on

To consider someone inferior.

look into

To investigate something.

look out

To be careful — usually shouted as a warning.

look through

To examine a collection item by item.

look back

To think about the past.

look over — meaning, examples & how to say it