prepositional phrase

American  

noun

Grammar.

1. a phrase consisting of a preposition, its object, which is usually a noun or a pronoun, and any modifiers of the object, as in the gray desk I use.

---

Etymology

Origin of prepositional phrase

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

But she points out that even when using an algorithm and controlling for prepositional phrases and the like, significant overlap occurs between the lists of most frequently used words in high-peace and low-peace countries.

From Scientific American

And I mistook a perfectly good English word, “rosé,” for the Polish prepositional phrase “o rosie,” which means “about the dew.”

From Washington Post

At “young children,” she choked up and struggled into a prepositional phrase—“to at least three . . . ”—that she could not complete.

From The New Yorker

But what really gets me is the order of the words, the clustering of all those prepositional phrases near the start.

From New York Times

The White House disagreed with The Washington Post’s description, so the paper had to issue a correction noting a change of a prepositional phrase in a sentence.

From Salon