Prepositions of Direction

Prepositions of direction give readers a sense of place or location. The following chart lists different prepositions of direction, their definitions, and examples.

Here’s a tip: Want to make sure your writing always looks great? Grammarly can save you from misspellings, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, and other writing issues on all your favorite websites.

Preposition	Meaning	Example
above	higher relative to something else	The milk is above the soda in the refrigerator.
across	on the other side of	My friend lives across the street from me.
along	beside	The ducks are eating along the river.
among	within a group	The girl was sitting among her friends.
around	in a circular way	They told stories around the campfire.
at	indicates a particular point	Meet me at the stop sign.
behind	at the back of	The employees parked behind the store.
below	lower relative to something else	I hung the poster below the mirror.
beside	next to	Come stand beside me.
close to	near	The flowers are close to the produce section.
over	above	The spices are over the sink.
through	from one point to the next	The river runs through the woods.
toward	in the direction of	The man started walking toward the exit.
up	from low to high	The store is right up the road.
down	from high to low	The boy tumbled down the hill.
between	in the space separating two things	The ring fell between the couch cushions.
by	near	The thrift store is by the church.
inside/in	within	Have you ever been inside an abandoned building?
near	close by	The movie theater is by the interstate.
next to	beside	The library is next to the post office.
on	touching something	Put the mail on the table.
onto	moving on top of something	The dog climbed onto the bed.
off	away from	Don’t jump off that wall.
past	on the farther side of	She drove right past the house.
under	below something	The cat slept under the bed.

Some prepositions are trickier than others. For example, it’s not so logical to be on a bus or a train or a plane rather than in one, yet that’s the way we say it. While you are on the plane (i.e., inside the plane), there is also a logo on the plane, and two wings on the plane, though they’re not inside with you. When in doubt about how to use a specific preposition, look up the proper term in a dictionary.