Your English: Phrasal verbs: walk

‘Many people expect Spain to walk away with the next World Cup’. Here walk away with means to win something such as a championship or a match very easily. Walk off with can be used in the same way. Both verbs can also be used to mean to steal something, as in ‘Hey! That man’s just walked off with my mobile phone’.

If you walk off an injury or an ailment, you get rid of it by going for a walk, as in ‘He went to the woods to try and walk off his hangover’. Used intransitively, walk off means to leave somewhere, usually angrily and without telling people that you are going, as in ‘Don’t walk off yet. I haven’t finished my story!’

If you walk in on someone, you enter a room where they are doing something private or secret, as in ‘More than once, he walked in on them kissing’.

If you walk out on someone, you suddenly leave a relationship with them, as in ‘Her husband had walked out on her a year before’. To walk out can also be used to mean to go on strike, as in ‘The factory has been at a standstill since the workforce walked out last week’. If you are angry or bored at a meeting, a lecture or a performance, you can walk out in the middle of it, as in ‘Several members of the audience were clearly offended by some of his jokes and walked out’.

If you walk over other people, you treat them badly and make them do what you want without caring about their feelings, as in ‘I’m not going to just sit here and let them walk all over me’.