Etimology
From Middle English of, from Old English of (“from, out of, off”), an unstressed form of æf, from Proto-West Germanic *ab, from Proto-Germanic *ab (“away; away from”). Doublet of off, which is the stressed descendant of the same Old English word. More at off.
preposition
of
Expressing distance or motion.
Expressing separation.
Expressing origin.
Expressing agency.
Expressing composition, substance.
Introducing subject matter.
Having partitive effect.
Expressing possession.
Forming the "objective genitive".
Expressing qualities or characteristics.
Expressing a point in time.
Examples
Sir said Galahad by this shelde ben many merueils fallen / Sir sayd the knyght hit befelle after the passion of our lord Ihesu Crist xxxij yere that Ioseph of Armathye the gentyl knyghte / the whiche took doune oure lord of the hooly Crosse att that tyme he departed from Iherusalem with a grete party of his kynred with hymSir, said Galahad, by this shield many marvels have fallen / Sir, said the knight, it befell after the passion of our lord Jesus Christ, year 32, when Joseph of Arimathea, the gentile knight, / took down our lord of the holy Cross. At that time, he departed from Jerusalem with a great party of his kindred with him
Sir, said Galahad, by this shield many marvels have fallen / Sir, said the knight, it befell after the passion of our lord Jesus Christ, year 32, when Joseph of Arimathea, the gentile knight, / took down our lord of the holy Cross. At that time, he departed from Jerusalem with a great party of his kindred with him
Against headache, vertigo, vapours which ascend forth of the stomach to molest the head, read Hercules de Saxonia and others.
He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line.
And he axed his father: howe longe is it agoo, sens this hath happened hym? And he sayde, of a chylde.
one that I brought vp of a puppy […] I was sent to deliuer him, as a present to Mistris Siluia, from my Master.
Obama has been obliged to make nice of late in hope of rescuing the moribund two-state process and preventing resumed West Bank settlement building.
There are no shops within twenty miles of the cottage.
Though Washington does not officially recognize Moscow, the Hoover Administration permits a Soviet Russian Information Bureau to flourish in a modest red brick house on Massachusetts Avenue, within a mile of the White House.
There are now upwards of 1.4 million 99ers in America facing a life with no benefits and few prospects for finding a job in a market in which companies are still not hiring.
Finally she was relieved of the burden of caring for her sick husband.
And ther with on his handes and on his knees he wente soo nyghe that he touched the holy vessel / and kyste hit / and anone he was hole / and thenne he sayd lord god I thanke the / for I am helyd of this sekenesseAnd there, with his hands and on his knees, he got so close that he touched the holy vessel / and kissed it / and he was whole straight away / and then he said: lord God, I thank thee / for I am healed of this sickness
And there, with his hands and on his knees, he got so close that he touched the holy vessel / and kissed it / and he was whole straight away / and then he said: lord God, I thank thee / for I am healed of this sickness
Antigonus [took] upon him to favour a souldier of his by reason of his vertue and valour, to have great care of him, and see whether they could recover him of a lingering and inward disease which had long tormented him […]
I am almost entirely cured of my rheumatism—just a little pain in my knee now and then, to make me remember what it was, and keep on flannel.
In Houston, ten minutes after the Lindquist Finance Corp. was robbed of $447, Office Manager Howard Willson got a phone call from the thief who complained: "You didn't have enough money over there."
He seemed devoid of human feelings.
But schemes are perfectly accidental: some will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful […]
Yet for long spells Villa looked laboured and devoid of ideas.
He was kindly treated by the people at Saco, and recovered of his wounds.
The word is believed to be of Japanese origin.
They wondred all, and marveylled sayinge amonge themselves: Loke, are not all these which speake off galile? And howe heare we every man his awne tongue wherein we were boren?
My father was born of a family of weavers in Manchester, England.
Nothing may come of these ideas, yet their potential should not be dismissed.
Jesus of Nazareth
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Aosta
Anselm of Bec
Pedro II of Brazil
Mrs Miggins of Gasworks Road, Mudchester
The invention was born of necessity.
Faire knyght said Palomydes me semeth we haue assayed eyther other passyng sore / and yf hit may please the / I requyre the of thy knyghthode telle me thy name / Sir said the knyȝt to Palomydes / that is me loth to doo / for thou hast done me wronge.Fair knight, said Palamedes, seems to me we have assayed, either other passing sore / and if it may please thee / I request thee, of thy knighthood, tell me thy name / Sir, said the knight to Palamedes, / I am loath to do that / for thou hast done me wrong.
Fair knight, said Palamedes, seems to me we have assayed, either other passing sore / and if it may please thee / I request thee, of thy knighthood, tell me thy name / Sir, said the knight to Palamedes, / I am loath to do that / for thou hast done me wrong.
Undoubtedly it is to be understood, that inflicting deserved punishment on all evil doers, of right, belongs to God.
The woman who danced for me said she was there of her own free will, but when I pushed a bit further, I discovered that she "owed a man a lot of money", and had to pay it back quickly.
It is said that she died of a broken heart.
He smelled of beer and cigarette smoke and his own body.
Two men, one from Somalia and one from Zimbabwe, died of terminal illnesses shortly after their incarceration ended.
I am tired of all this nonsense.
Lib Dems were appalled by Mr Boles’s offer, however kindly meant: the party is so frightened of losing its independence under Mr Clegg that such a pact would “kill” him, says a senior member.
Thus, one finds individuals dead of a gunshot wound with potentially lethal levels of drugs.
I am not particularly enamoured of this idea.
After a good while, the iewes toke cousell amonge themselves to kyll him. But their layinges awayte wer knowen of Saul.
[S]he might appeare to be the lively patterne of another Lucrece, yet know I certainly that, both before that time and afterward, she had beene enjoyed of others upon easier composition.
The family is ordained of God.
Colombia and Venezuela share an elegantly restrained style, with much back-stepping, smaller hand-movements and little use of the elaborate, arm-tangling moves beloved of Cuban dancers.
The contract can be terminated at any time with the agreement of both parties.
In Blood and Sand, meanwhile, Valentino repeatedly solicits the attention of women who have turned away from him.
Somehow Croatia has escaped the opprobrium of the likes of the German Christian Democrats and others that are against any rapid enlargement of the European Union to the include rest of the western Balkans.
It was very brave of you to speak out like that.
When this was over, Mr. Woodhouse gratefully observed,—"It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley, to come out at this late hour to call upon us."
Morrissey's spokesperson says he is considering the offer. It would perhaps be rude of him to decline.
Many 'corks' are now actually made of plastic.
The mallet is made of a hard heavy wood resembling ebony, is about twelve inches in length, and perhaps two in breadth, with a rounded handle at one end […]
She wore a dress of silk.
Perhaps symbolically, Van Doesburg was building a house of straw: he died within a few months of completion, not in Meudon but in Davos, of a heart attack following a bout of asthma.
It's 25km of rolling pitch from the start of the 175 to Nansi. If you want to continue riding through more undeveloped natural landscape, head up the east side of Tsengwen Reservoir.
What a lot of nonsense!
His papers at this period contain a mass of very unedifying and uninteresting documents […] .
I'd expected to be confronted by oodles of barely suppressed tension and leather-clad, pouty-mouthed, large-haired sexiness; the visual shorthand of rock gods in general, and Jon Bon Jovi in particular.
Welcome to the historic town of Harwich.
This having the rainy month of March and April to water it, sprung up very pleasantly, and yielded a very good crop […] .
In his studio in the Behlendorf woods, near the Baltic city of Lübeck, Günter Grass reflects on the outcry over his fictive memoir Peeling the Onion.
I'm not driving this wreck of a car.
As he swallowed the soup his heart warmed to this fool of a girl.
"I'm having a bitch of a day," he says, after ordering a restorative pint of Guinness and flopping down in a seat by the front window.
I'm always thinking of you.
[H]e spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of talking of him […]
You must not judge of Celia's feeling from mine. I think she likes these small pets.
while producing Cook, which includes more than 250 seasonal recipes by 80 different chefs, we washed up more than 500 times .
He told us the story of his journey to India.
Recession and rising unemployment have put paid to most thoughts of further EU enlargement.
This behaviour is typical of teenagers.
The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm Whales.
Most of these apples are rotten.
But as for me said sire Gareth I medle not of their maters therfore there is none of them that loueth me / And for I vnderstande they be murtherers of good knyghtes I lefte theyre companyBut as for me, said Sir Gareth, I do not meddle their matters, therefore none of them loves me / And, since I understand they are murderers of good knights, I left their company.
But as for me, said Sir Gareth, I do not meddle their matters, therefore none of them loves me / And, since I understand they are murderers of good knights, I left their company.
The dead bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and insulted; two of the most obnoxious prisoners were punished with death […]
Many of the civilisational achievements of Mesopotamia are the product of that symbiosis.
everyone, even the ladies of the village, called the dish tzigayner shmeklekh, or “gypsies' penises.”
That, I think, is the buried core of the outrage people feel most generally.
On the whole, they seem to be of the decent sort.
And the folysshe sayde to the wyse: geve us of youre oyle, for oure lampes goo out?
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, […]
Dunning, however, is of the old school, and does not like new faces; so he will have no Irishman at his door […]
He is a friend of mine.
He is just what I should have liked a son of mine to be.
In its flattering way, the press tried to invest this habit of Bush's with the sense that it was indicative of a particularly sharp wit.
He was perhaps the most famous scientist of the twentieth century.
The building was erected in two years, at the parochial expence, on the foundation of the former one, which was irreparably damaged by the hurricane of Auguſt, 1712.
Thus, as he dressed, the thoughts and the rage of yesterday began to stir and move in his mind again.
Within ten seconds, the citizens of New York, Cleveland, Detroit and Toronto were being given first-hand experience of what it was like to live in the nineteenth century.
The owner of the nightclub was arrested.
In a much-anticipated radio broadcast the Duke of Edinburgh said last night that Britain will be a grim place in the year 2000 […]
The third son, William John , was headmaster of the Boys' British School, Hitchin […]
Keep the handle of the saucepan away from the flames.
The breasts of young girls sometimes become tender at puberty in sympathy with the evolution of the sexual organs […]
It amounts to knocking on the door of No 10 then running away.
She had a profound distrust of the police.
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Antifeminism has been a credible cover and an effective vehicle because the hatred of women is not politically anathema on either the Right or the Left.
My companion seemed affable and easy of manner.
He was huge, raw-boned, knotty, long of body and long of leg, with the head of a war charger.
Still nimble of mind and fleet of foot, Morris buzzed here and there, linking well and getting stuck in at every opportunity.
Pooh was said to be a bear of very little brain.
His frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable self-restraint and firmness.
No other man has made so deep a mark on his time and on our world unless he has been a man of action, a Cromwell or a Napoleon.
We have been paying interest at a rate of 10%.
She was a tall young girl of about twenty-two or three, holding herself erect and with fine dignity.
A police car, traveling southbound at a speed of 40.0 m/s, approaches with its siren producing sound at a frequency of 2 500 Hz.
It's not that big of a deal.
Such hegemonic projects often appropriate certain local traditions and re-inscribe them as "national," while dismissing other traditions which pose too great of a threat to the reproduction of the existing socio-political order.
For some individuals, even 1000 calories/day may be too great of a deficit.
While it is quite obvious that the state continues to try and dilute the voting power of Native Americans, at least as big of a challenge is the need for mobilizing Native American voters.
Of an evening, we would often go for a stroll along the river.
For, sometimes of an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been reading the paper through her little gold eye-glass […], she has become agitated, […]
If there was a type Ida despised, Sir Claude communicated to Maisie, it was the man who pottered about town of a Sunday […]
I’ve not taken her out of a goodly long while.
After a delay of three hours, the plane finally took off.
The cab driver's claim he was sleepwalking during the attack has already been supported by his wife of 37 years.
I’ll be ready at ten of twoI’ll be ready at 1:50
I’ll be ready at 1:50
What's the time? / Nearly a quarter of three.
I'll be ready by five of noon.
"Fellow Democrats," he began, "I left Washington at a quarter of two this morning […] "
Quarter of seven. Fifteen minutes to go.
I’ll be ready at ten ofI’ll be ready at 1:50, or 2:50, or whatever time ending in 10 makes most sense in context.
I’ll be ready at 1:50, or 2:50, or whatever time ending in 10 makes most sense in context.
Wednesday was more of the same. Out at 08:30, got to the office by quarter of, clients all day.
Wednesday was more of the same. Out at 08:30, got to the office by quarter of, clients all day.
Related words
related terms
bill of goods
by dint of
by way of
come of
in excess of
in respect of
in terms of
of age
of a kind
of all
of all people
of an
of a piece
of a sudden
of biblical proportions
of blessed memory
of choice
of color
of colour
of course
of even date
of importance
of late
of means
of note
of one's own accord
of record
of sorts
of that ilk
of the essence
of the first water
of the like
of two minds
out of
point of view
quarter of
sort of
thereof
time of day
tired of
way of life
Etimology
A spelling of /əv/ influenced by Etymology 1.
verb
of
(usually in modal perfect constructions) Eye dialect spelling of have or ’ve, chiefly in depictions of colloquial speech.
Examples
I have refrained from giving many details which I might of done, from feelings of delicacy; indeed, they were of so dark and dreadful a nature, that I could do no more than hint at them
"I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet, and when she have been the bill you'd of thought she had my appendicitus out."
‘You must of left your door unlocked. Or even open.’
"You couldn't of known," Livio says.
symbol
of
(stenoscript) Abbreviation of off, often