Verbs about human body

This section deals with verbs and phrasal verbs built around the names of body parts.

Break an arm / leg etc.

To break your arm is to break the bone in the arm.

She fell off the ladder and broke her arm.

To eye something

To eye something is to look at it with interest.

She eyed my car until I drove off.

To finger something

To finger something is to touch or feel it with your fingers.

She fingered the clothes to see if they were wet.

To head

To head is to hit a ball with your head.

Andrew headed the ball with all his might and within no time it was in the goal.

To mouth

To move your lips as if you were talking

It was pretty clear that actors were only mouthing their dialogues. (= The actors weren’t saying their dialogues on the stage. They were simply making appropriate lip movements. )

To nose

To nose is to look around in order to find something

You can’t hide anything from her. She will nose around until she finds out the truth.

Some phrasal verbs with names of body parts

Back down

To back down is to admit that you were wrong.

At last he backed down and apologized.

Back out              

To decide not to do something that you had promised to do

She has promised to give me $1000, but she eventually backed out of it.