to leaf through

– C1 (advanced) –

Practice Your Listening Comprehension

Practice Your Reading Comprehension

In North American English, this phrasal verb typically means:

  • to quickly turn the pages of a book/magazine/newspaper/etc. in order to search for something or read/see what content is written

EXAMPLES

  1. “She doesn’t think her prof actually read her paper. It is completely unmarked. She thinks he just leafed through it and assigned her a grade.”

  2. “Whenever I buy a new book, I like to leaf through it in order to see what the font looks like. If the font is too big, too small, or ugly, then I won’t buy that edition. I’ll get another one.”

  3. “Every Saturday as a child, he would leaf through the newspaper to find the comic book section. It was his favourite thing to do Saturday mornings: read comic strips with a cup of orange juice, while his grandfather drank a cup of coffee next him reading the Classifieds.”

When was the last time you leafed through something? What were you leafing through and why were you doing it? Practice using this phrasal verb by letting me know in the comments below.


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5 Indigenous Terms Used In Canadian English, Part I

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Labour Day In Canada