Useful Dictionary of Nouns With Prepositions

Students learning English often have difficulties knowing which preposition goes with a particular noun. This is where this dictionary will help you. It contains about 1,200 entries. By looking up the noun you will find the preposition, a definition and an example:

guide n guide to book describing a place or explaining a subject: He was looking in the travel section for a guide to the Algarve.

In the above short entry:

guide = the headword, the basic noun

n = the part of speech

guide to = the noun and the correct preposition

book describing a place or explaining a subject = the definition of the noun

He was looking in the travel section for a guide to the Algarve = an example of the noun as it would typically be used in a sentence, with the noun and preposition in bold type

Some entries show prepositions that can come both either before or after the noun:

detail n details of small, special items, points, facts, etc. of: The newspaper reported the details of the battle. in detail covering all features of something: I need time to study the proposal in detail.

Note that not all possible uses of nouns and prepositions are included. Usages that can be easily deduced from the noun and normal uses of prepositions are excluded. For example, with the noun call, the usages make a phone call to and the call of a bird can be easily worked out from the noun call and the normal use of the prepositions to and of. However, the following are included as they cannot be easily worked out from the noun call and the normal use of the prepositions:

call n call for or to need: I don't think there's any call for alarm at this point. There's no call to worry. call on short visit to: I'll pay a call on her later to see how she's doing. on call available to work if summoned: The doctor was able to go home but had to remain on call that night.

Some entries have style markers (formal) or (informal) to help you know the context when to use the adjective:

prerequisite n (formal)

run-in n (informal)

We hope that you will find this dictionary helpful and that it will help you to use English nouns correctly.