Prepositions: Classifications With Examples

Look at these sentences:

The boy jumped over the wall. The children are in the class.

In the first sentence, the word over tells us the relation between the verb jumped and the noun wall. In the second sentence, the word in tells us the relation between the nouns children and class.

The words over and in are prepositions.

A preposition usually comes before a noun or a pronoun which is its object. The preposition tells us the relation of its object to other words in the sentence.

Sometimes the preposition comes at the end of the sentence when the object is a relative pronoun or an interrogative pronoun.

Here is the book that you were looking for. What are you looking at?

Kinds of Prepositions

There are various kinds of prepositions:

—  simple prepositions

— compound prepositions

—  complex or phrase prepositions

Simple Prepositions

Words like in, on, at, by, from, about, over, under, through, till, up, off, of, for, to, etc. are simple prepositions.

They came from Kolkata. There is some juice in the can. He fell off the chair.

Compound Prepositions

Compound prepositions are words formed by combining prepositions, nouns, adverbs, etc. Some examples of compound prepositions are into, across, without, within, inside, outside, onto, beneath, below, behind, between, etc.

Put the bread into the bread bin.

At the movie hall, I sat between Kavya and Varun. She ran across the street to catch the bus.

Complex or Phrase Prepositions

Some prepositions are made up of a group of words that do the work of a single preposition. These are called complex or phrase prepositions. Some examples are in front of, because of, with reference to, in spite of, in addition to, according to, along with, away from, by means of, in place of, etc.

There is a car in front of the house.

Rita succeeded because of her hard work.

In spite of the cold, the children played outside in the garden.

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Prepositions of Place

Prepositions express several relations. Prepositions of place tell us ‘where’. Some prepositions of place are above, below, under, over, beside, down, near, in front of, around, etc.

The fruit hung above my head, but I could not reach it. There is a new car in front of the house.

The man walked down the road.

At, in and on are used as prepositions of place.

Someone is at the door. I live in Mumbai.

The painting is on the wall.

 

use                                                        examples
at	for a specific point	at the door at the corner
	before a particular address or before the name of a place	I live at 22, Arya Nagar. Let’s meet at the coffee shop.

 

use                                                        examples
in	to refer to an enclosed space, or a larger area like a town or a city	The books are in the bag. The assembly takes place in the central hall. We lived in Chennai for ten years.

 

Note that we say:

The cupboard is kept in the corner of the room. but Our house is at the corner of the street.

A room is an enclosed space, but a street is not.

use                                                        examples
on	for a surface; before the names of roads and streets	I wrote my name on the cover. There are three lights on the ceiling. We live on M.G. Road.

 

use                                                         example
between	when there are only two persons or things	Kriti sat between her two best friends.

 

use                                                         example
among	when there are more than two persons or things	Share the chocolates equally among your cousins.

 

use                                                         example
beside	to mean ‘by the side of ’	I sat beside my mother and held her hand.

use                                                        examples
besides	to mean ‘except’ or ‘in addition to’	Who besides Mira could have done this? Besides Tara, Ravi and Bina were at the show.

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Prepositions of Time 

Several prepositions are used to talk of time. These are on, in, at, till, during, after, before, etc. Please wait till 3 o’clock.          He arrived before midnight. My turn comes after yours.

Let’s look at the use of in, on and at as prepositions of time.

We reached home at 2.00 p.m. I was born in July.

Harsh has to go to Patiala on 21 April.

use                                                        examples
at	to talk of a specific point of time	Let’s meet at 2.00 p.m. The party got over at midnight. At the end of the meeting, everyone went home happy.

 

use                                                        examples
in	to talk of a period of time. This could include a few minutes or hours, a week, a month, a year or a longer period.	Can you meet me in 15 minutes? It becomes very hot in summer. We shifted to Nasik in 1995. A lot of new discoveries were made in the last century.

 

use                                                        examples
on	to talk of a particular day or date	Everyone wears new clothes on Diwali day. They got engaged on February 5th. Can you meet me on Sunday?

 

use                                                        examples
since	to talk of a period starting from a point of time, and usually comes after a verb in the perfect tense	Naresh and Smita have been living in Bhopal since 2007. Harsh has given up painting since June this year.

use                                                        examples
from	for a point of time (not used with verbs in the perfect tense)	The summer holidays will begin from May 20. The guarantee will be valid from the day you buy this phone.

 

use                                                        examples
for	to refer to or speak about a period of time	Naresh and Smita have lived in Bhopal for four years. Tripti was on leave for five days.

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Prepositions of Direction

Prepositions of movement or direction denote ‘where’. Some prepositions of movement are to, at, towards, through, into, over, under, up, down, etc.

The boys climbed over the orchard wall to pluck fruit. Raghu walked under the bridge.

Let’s walk towards the river.

Karim looked through the glass at the toys in the shop. Leena looked at her mother for permission.

 

use                                                        examples
to	To denotes a fixed destination.	We went to the market. I went to school on Sunday.
into	Into suggests movement from outside to an enclosed space.	The children jumped into the pool.
towards	Towards denotes movement and is indefinite.	Walk towards the school and I will meet you on the way.

 

use                                                        examples
upon	Upon denotes ‘towards’.	The children jumped upon their father when he came home.
off	Off means ‘away from’.	The fat man fell off his chair.

 

Prepositions of Cause, Purpose or Source

Depending on how is used, a preposition can suggest cause or purpose. Some examples of such prepositions are for, of, with, by, from, etc.

This is just the place for a picnic. He suffered from fever for five days. The girl cried with fear.

 

use                                                        examples
by with	By is used in the passive to talk of the doer of an action. With denotes who/what the agent of an action is.	The thief was beaten by the residents with sticks. The walls were drilled by the electrician with an electric drill.