English prepositions: the full list, with examples and the mistakes to avoid

You can have a wide vocabulary, a good accent and a confident grasp of the tenses, and one tiny word will still give you away. I’m married with a teacher. It depends of the weather. We arrived to London on Friday. Every sentence is perfectly clear. Every one sounds slightly wrong to a native ear. The culprit each time is a preposition.

Prepositions are short, common and maddeningly unpredictable, and there are well over a hundred of them. The good news is that you don’t need all of them to sound natural. You need the core set, a handful of reliable patterns, and a list of the pairings that simply have to be learnt. That is what this guide gives you.

What a preposition actually does

A preposition links a noun, pronoun or -ing form to the rest of the sentence and tells you how the two relate — in time, in space, in direction, or in some more abstract way. The preposition and the word that follows it form a prepositional phrase: after lunch, under the bridge, without thinking.

Two things are worth knowing from the start. First, a preposition is always followed by a noun-type word, so if a verb comes next it takes the -ing form: I’m interested in learning, never interested in learn. Second, the old school rule that you must never end a sentence with a preposition is a myth. Who are you talking to? is completely natural English. To whom are you talking? sounds like a Victorian butler.

The most common English prepositions

These are the words you will meet every day. Learn this list and you have most everyday English covered.

Single words: about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, despite, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, opposite, out, outside, over, past, round, since, through, throughout, till, to, towards, under, underneath, until, up, upon, via, with, within, without.

Two- and three-word prepositions: according to, ahead of, apart from, as well as, because of, close to, due to, except for, in addition to, in front of, in spite of, instead of, next to, on behalf of, on top of, out of, thanks to, up to.

At, on and in: the big three

If you only master three prepositions, make it these. The easiest way to remember them is as a funnel, from the most precise to the most general. At is a point. On is a surface or a single day. In is a container or a longer stretch of time.

Time

Preposition	Used for	Examples
at	Clock times, mealtimes, festivals, fixed expressions	at 7.30, at lunchtime, at Christmas, at night, at the weekend
on	Days, dates, specific occasions	on Monday, on 14 February, on my birthday, on Christmas Day
in	Months, years, seasons, decades, parts of the day	in March, in 2027, in summer, in the 1990s, in the morning

Watch the small traps. It is at Christmas (the season) but on Christmas Day (the date). It is in the morning but on Monday morning, because once a specific day is attached, the day wins. And with next, last, this and every, you drop the preposition entirely: I’ll see you next Friday, not on next Friday.

Place

Preposition	Used for	Examples
at	A point, an address, a place where an activity happens	at the bus stop, at 12 Leith Walk, at work, at home, at a concert
on	Surfaces, lines, floors, public transport	on the table, on the wall, on the second floor, on the coast, on the train
in	Enclosed spaces, towns, countries, larger areas, cars	in the kitchen, in Valencia, in Spain, in the queue, in a taxi

Transport deserves a special mention. If you can stand up and walk around, it is on: on the bus, on the plane, on a ferry. If you have to fold yourself in, it is in: in the car, in a taxi. And to describe how you travel in general, use by with no article: by train, by bike — but on foot.

Other prepositions of time

Preposition	Meaning	Example
for	A length of time	I’ve lived here for three years.
since	The starting point of a period that continues	I’ve lived here since 2023.
during	Within a period (followed by a noun)	She fell asleep during the film.
by	No later than a deadline	Please send it by Friday.
until / till	Up to a point, then it stops	The shop is open until eight.
before / after	Earlier or later than	Stretch before a run, eat after it.
within	Inside a time limit	We reply within 24 hours.
from … to	The start and end of a period	I work from nine to five.

The pair that causes most trouble is by and until. By is a deadline: the action happens at some point before it. Until describes something that continues right up to that moment. I’ll finish the report by six means it will be done. I’ll work on the report until six means you’ll stop at six, finished or not.

Prepositions of place and position

Preposition	Example
above / over	There’s a light above the mirror. She held an umbrella over her head.
below / under	The temperature fell below zero. The cat is under the bed.
beside / next to	Come and sit beside me. The chemist is next to the bank.
between	The café is between the station and the park.
among	We found a tent among the trees.
behind / in front of	The garden is behind the house. There’s a bench in front of it.
opposite	The hotel is opposite the cathedral.
near / close to	We live near the beach, close to the old town.
inside / outside	Leave your boots outside the door.

Two distinctions are worth a second look. Between is for things you see as separate, usually two; among is for a group or mass you don’t count individually. And above simply means higher, while over often suggests covering or crossing: a picture hangs above the fireplace, but you pull a blanket over yourself.

Prepositions of movement

Where prepositions of place describe where something is, these describe where it is going.