from Meaning, Definition & Usage

From preposition

Etymology

AS. fram, from; akin to OS. fram out, OHG. & Icel. fram forward, Sw. fram, Dan. frem, Goth. fram from, prob. akin to E. forth. 202. Cf. Fro, Foremost.

Definitions

1. Out of the neighborhood of; lessening or losing proximity to; leaving behind; by reason of; out of; by aid of; -- used whenever departure, setting out, commencement of action, being, state, occurrence, etc., or procedure, emanation, absence, separation, etc., are to be expressed. It is construed with, and indicates, the point of space or time at which the action, state, etc., are regarded as setting out or beginning; also, less frequently, the source, the cause, the occasion, out of which anything proceeds; -- the aritithesis and correlative of to; as, it, is one hundred miles from Boston to Springfield; he took his sword from his side; light proceeds from the sun; separate the coarse wool from the fine; men have all sprung from Adam, and often go from good to bad, and from bad to worse; the merit of an action depends on the principle from which it proceeds; men judge of facts from personal knowledge, or from testimony.

   Experience from the time past to the time present. Bacon.

   The song began from Jove. Drpden.

   From high Mæonia's rocky shores I came. Addison.

   If the wind blow any way from shore. Shak.

   ✍ From sometimes denotes away from, remote from, inconsistent with. "Anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing." Shak. From, when joined with another preposition or an adverb, gives an opportunity for abbreviating the sentence. "There followed him great multitudes of people . . . from [the land] beyond Jordan." Math. iv. 25. In certain constructions, as from forth, from out, etc., the ordinary and more obvious arrangment is inverted, the sense being more distinctly forth from, out from -- from being virtually the governing preposition, and the word the adverb. See From off, under Off, adv., and From afar, under Afar, adv.

   Sudden partings such as press The life from out young hearts. Byron.