PREPOSITIONS

KINDS OF PREPOSITIONS
THE COMMONLY USED PREPOSTIONS ARE:

About At Down Of
Above Before During Overupon
Across Behind For To
After Below From Up
Against Beside In With
Along Between Into Under
among by Inside than

These prepositions are termed as simple prepositions

There are also some phrases that do the work of
prepositions. They may be called Compound Prepositions/
Phrase Prepositions
According to Such as On behalf of
Apart from Except for In accordance
As for Owing to with
Out of Due to In spite of
Together with Because of In place of
Up to By means of With regard to
By virtue of On account of For the sake of
In course of in order to In addition to
In favour of In case of Instead of
In view of
• At, In (Preposition of place)
‘In’ is commonly used when referring to large places such as countries,
states, cities and large towns.

eg: Malini was born in Chennai.

‘At’ is commonly used for small towns and villages and certain specified
places.
eg: Malini was born at a small village in Chennai.
Note: If the place of work referred is not a building ‘On’ is generally
preferred to
eg: I worked on Shameed till evening
• At, on, in, by (Preposition of time)
While speaking about time ‘at’ is used for an exact point of time or a certain
moment.
eg: Jack was born at 5 a.m.

‘On’ is used for a specific day/ date- a more general point of time
eg: Jack was born at 5.a.m. on Monday.

‘In’ denotes a period of time.

eg: Jack was born at 5 o’clock in morning on Monday.

‘By’ shows the latest time at which an action will be finished. Generally ‘by’ is used
with the Future Tenses.
eg: The teacher commanded him to return by 3 o’clock.

I shall be leaving by 5 o’clock.

• By, on upon (Prepositions of travel and movement)
If the way of journey is by bus , car, train, boat, ship, plane, air, ‘By’ is used.
eg: We went to Ooty by train.

If the journey is on foot, bicycle, ‘on’ is generally used.

eg: We went to Quilon on bicycle.
‘Upon’ is generally used about things in motion.
eg: He jumped upon the horse.
Note:
1. Now the use of ‘upon’ is not rigidly followed, and ‘on’ is often used about things in motion
too.
2. While ‘in’ and ‘at’ are used to refer things rest, ‘to’ and ‘into’ are used to refer things in
motion.
• In, into
I was in his room when he came.

‘Into’ shows a movement to the inside of something.

The rocket smashed into the sea
Note: ‘into’ is different from ‘in to’
He went in to dinner
• Beside, Besides
Beside means ‘ by the side of’
eg: She is walking beside him.

‘Besides’ means ‘in addition to’/ ‘as well as’

It is also used as an adverb
Eg: Besides my brother, I was also selected for the journey.

• Towards, toward
Both these prepositions are interchangeable.
eg: India is going toward(s) victory.
• About, around/ round
‘About’ indicates a distributed activity touching here and there.
He worked there about five hours.
‘Around’ indicates a closer proximity. In informal English ‘round’ is often
preferred to ‘around’
We travelled around the world
• Among, Between
‘Among’ is used when the reference is to more than two- individually or in
groups.

They discussed the matter among the parties.

‘Between’ is used when the reference is to two-individuals or groups.
They discussed the matter between the two parties.
Note:
1. ‘Amongst’ is a literary variant of ‘among’
2. If ‘between’ is used to distinguish between two ideas, ‘and’ should be used after
that.
eg: Raju wedded Meenu between 10.15 and 10.30 A.M.