Definition of Preposition

1. Noun. 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.

Generic synonyms: Closed-class Word, Function Word

2. Noun. (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).
Category relationships: Linguistics
Generic synonyms: Place, Position
Derivative terms: Prepose

Definition of Preposition

1. n. A word employed to connect a noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word; a particle used with a noun or pronoun (in English always in the objective case) to make a phrase limiting some other word; -- so called because usually placed before the word with which it is phrased; as, a bridge of iron; he comes from town; it is good for food; he escaped by running.

Definition of Preposition

1. Noun. (grammar) Any of a closed class of non-inflecting words typically employed to connect a noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word: a particle used with a noun or pronoun (in English always in the objective case) to make a phrase limiting some other word. ¹

2. Noun. (obsolete) A proposition; an exposition; a discourse. ¹

3. Verb. To place in a location before some other event occurs. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Preposition

1. [n -S]

Lexicographical Neighbors of Preposition

prepones
preponing
prepopulate
prepopulated
prepopulates
prepopulating
prepopulist
preportion
preportioned
preportioning
preportions
prepose
preposed
preposes
preposing
preposition
preposition of place
prepositional
prepositional article
prepositional case
prepositional cases
prepositional object
prepositional phrase
prepositional phrases
prepositional pronoun
prepositional pronouns
prepositionally
prepositionals
prepositioned
prepositioning

Literary usage of Preposition

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. English Grammar Simplified: Its Study Made Easy by James Champlin Fernald (1916)
"A preposition is a relation-word; it belongs to the class of words called ... The antecedent of a preposition may be a noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, ..."

2. The History of Language by Henry Sweet (1900)
"Evolution of the Preposition.—The evolution of the preposition is second in ... A preposition is, logically speaking, a word put before a noun-word—noun, ..."

3. The Infinitive in Anglo-Saxon by Morgan Callaway (1913)
"C. AS THE OBJECT OF A Preposition. Aside from the inflected infinitive made up of the preposition to l plus a dative of the verbal поил in -ne, ..."

4. English Grammar: The English Language in Its Elements and Forms ; with a by William Chauncey Fowler (1855)
"A Preposition is a word which can not by itself form the constituent part of a ... The preposition, Latin pra-positio, was so called because it was placed ..."

5. Essentials of English Grammar: For the Use of Schools by William Dwight Whitney (1877)
"A preposition, as we have already seen (44- 6) is not a word that names or points out or asserts or qualifies or describes anything; it only shows a ..."

6. A Practical Introduction to Latin Prose Composition by Thomas Kerchever Arnold (1854)
"(6) In some expressions the preposition nearly always takes the middle place: ... Even when the relative has no substantive with it, the preposition often ..."

7. The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (1851)
"But Murray's twelfth rule of syntax, while it expressly calls to before the infinitive a preposition, absurdly takes away from it this regimen, ..."

8. The Languages of West Africa by Frederick William Hugh Migeod (1911)
"CHAPTER XIV THE Preposition THE common definition of a preposition is that it is a word which shows the relation between one thing and another, ..."

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