preposition
prepositions
A preposition is the part of speech that shows a relationship between words. Think of “anywhere a cat can go.” A cat can go “under” the table, “on” the bed, or “out” the door. Looking for a cat? Use a preposition.
In the sentence "The car went careening into the ditch," the preposition is into: it's the word that points to the noun. "We love to chase kids around the carnival in our scary clown costumes" has two prepositions, around and in. They tell you where things are happening. The most common prepositions are of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, and from.
Definitions of preposition
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a function word that combines with a noun or pronoun or noun phrase to form a prepositional phrase that can have an adverbial or adjectival relation to some other word
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type of:
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closed-class word, function word
a word that is uninflected and serves a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning
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closed-class word, function word
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(linguistics) the placing of one linguistic element before another (as placing a modifier before the word it modifies in a sentence or placing an affix before the base to which it is attached)
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘preposition'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
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