List of Prepositions and Images

Using the right preposition at the proper time can make your writing and speech sound more natural. While prepositions are a workhorse of the English language, they can sometimes prove challenging for new learners and teachers alike. Prepositions are the connector words that customarily tie a noun or pronoun to an idea, location or other object in a sentence. They can be a single word or a short phrase and are often combined with verbs to express different relationships between objects. The technical definition of a preposition from Merriam-Webster is “a function word that typically combines with a noun phrase to form a phrase which usually expresses a modification or predication.”

Generally, they come after the verb and before the noun or pronoun in the sentence. They can be either transitive or intransitive. Transitive prepositions take a noun phrase complement after them, while intransitive prepositions don’t. Prepositions can also be used to indicate different types of spatial relationships. For instance, a preposition like “in” can be used to describe a position in space (e.g. in front of, on, above, behind, or next to).

While there are a lot of different prepositions, some of them are more common than others. For this reason, it’s important to know the most common ones so that you can apply them in your writing and speech. Below, we’ve put together a list of English prepositions with examples so that you can learn all of the most common types of prepositions.

List of Prepositions and Images

This article is a comprehensive list of English prepositions and their definitions. It contains a total of 150 prepositions, including common ones like in, on, by and over. It also includes a number of more 英語前置詞の一覧とイメージ uncommon prepositions, including among, before, beside, below, in, at, around, from, by, down, and toward.

Most prepositions are single-word intransitive prepositions, but some can be used both intransitively and transitively. These are marked with an asterisk in the table below. Dictionaries and grammars informed by concepts of traditional grammar may categorize these intransitive prepositions as adverbs.

Many of these prepositions can be used both intransitively and with noun phrases as complements. However, some are only intransitive and do not accept noun phrases as complements. These are marked with an asterisk * in the table below.