Dictionaries › English

for

Pronunciation: /fɔː/

The English word “for” has 20 meanings listed here.

conjunction

  1. Because.

preposition

  1. Towards; in the direction of.
  2. Leading towards in time or circumstance.
  3. Directed at; intended to belong to.
  4. In order to help, benefit, gratify, honor etc. (someone or something).
  5. Befitting of someone’s beliefs, needs, wants, skills, or tastes; best suited to.
  6. To be used or treated in a stated way, or with a stated purpose or meaning.
  7. Supporting, in favour of.
  8. Because of.
  9. In order to cure, remove or counteract.
  10. So as to allow (something or someone) to take position.
  11. In anticipation of.
  12. As an evaluation of; as to evaluate in connection with.
  13. So as to identify or locate.
  14. Over (a period of time).
  15. Throughout or across (a distance in space).
  16. Used to introduce a subject of a to-infinitive clause.
  17. On behalf of.
  18. In the role or capacity of; instead of; in place of.
  19. In exchange for; in correspondence or equivalence with.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English for, from Old English for (“for, because of”), from Proto-Germanic *furi (“for”), from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂-. Cognate with West Frisian foar (“for”), Dutch voor (“for”), German für (“for”), Danish for (“for”), Swedish för (“for”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk for (“for”), Icelandic fyrir (“for”), Latin per (“by, through, for, by means of”) and Romance…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “for” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.