These pages are about the vocabulary of prepositions and contain mostly wordlists and example sentences. (You can see the grammar of prepositions here.)

Prepositions of Time

Example sentences for some common prepositions of time - at, in, during

Prepositions of Place

Illustration and example sentences, with quiz, for some common prepositions of place

Prepositions List

Full list of 150 one-word and complex prepositions, with example sentences

Prepositions Short List

Shorter list of 70 one-word prepositions

About prepositions

There are more than 100 prepositions in English. Yet this is a very small number when you think of the thousands of other words (nouns, verbs etc). Prepositions are important words. We use individual prepositions more frequently than other individual words. In fact, the prepositions of, to and in are among the ten most frequent words in English.

The name "preposition" (pre + position) means "place before". Prepositions usually come before another word, usually a noun or noun phrase:

If a preposition does not come before another word, it is still closely linked to another word:

See also: prepositions grammar

Many prepositions can also be adverbs:
  • They are in the kitchen. ← preposition
  • Please come in. ← adverb

A few prepositions can also be conjunctions:

  • Everyone came but Tara. ← preposition
  • I asked her but she didn't answer. ← conjunction