Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Rubens leads our eye along diagonal lines from the ground to the sky, from the close-at-hand to the faraway, incrementally.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 1, 2026
Drawing grand lessons from especially vivid and close-at-hand examples is always tempting.
From The New Yorker • Nov. 24, 2014
We’re better at dealing with problems that are concrete, close-at-hand, familiar and require skills and tools that we already possess.
From Time • Jul. 15, 2013
The numerous species of traps use ingenious methods to cover the insects imprisoned in the blossom with the sticky pollen that they carry to the flower's close-at-hand female sex organ as they try to escape.
From Time Magazine Archive
In country open enough to preclude the deadly close-at-hand surprise rush, where one has no chance to use his weapon at all, the rhinoceros is not dangerous to one who knows his business.
From The Leopard Woman by White, Stewart Edward
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
