of course

Idioms  

1. In the customary or expected order, naturally, as in The new minister did not, of course, fire the church secretary . This usage, first recorded in 1548, employs course in the sense of “ordinary procedure.”

2. Certainly, as in Of course I'll answer the phone , or Are you going to the meeting?—Of course . [Early 1800s] Also see matter of course .

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

of course

"I said, 'Well, of course not, sir, she wouldn't want it'. And then he said, 'Well, I walked behind Lord Mountbatten's coffin.' And I said, 'Yes, but you were 30 and he wasn't your mother'."

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026

The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle, in the opaque unknown.

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026

“Because of that, it makes them desirable and interesting. And of course, once it goes on an auction site like eBay, it’s very easy for that price to go up.”

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 19, 2026

“We don’t feel that so much in the museum itself, of course, or with our visitors, but it’s a totally different situation on the internet. Online we get really very bad, very negative posts.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

But of course Karli hardly needed an invitation.

From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo