Word.ws English Dictionary

at the elbow

at the elbow prepositional phrase: very near; close at hand.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (archaic, idiomatic, usually) Very near; close at hand.
    • I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these fighting cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC
    • Many times in my life, standing in long sea-boots and streaming oilskins at the elbow of my commander on the poop of a homeward-bound ship making for the Channel, and gazing ahead into the gray and tormented waste, I have heard a weary sigh shape itself into a studiously casual comment1904–1906, Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published October 1906, →OCLC

Questions about at the elbow

What does at the elbow mean?
At the elbow means very near; close at hand.
What part of speech is at the elbow?
At the elbow is a prepositional phrase.

Words near at the elbow in the dictionary

  1. at the door
  2. at the door of
  3. at the double
  4. at the drop of a hat
  5. at the earliest
  6. at the elbow
  7. at the end of one's tether
  8. at the end of the day
  9. at the end of the rainbow
  10. at the expense of
  11. at the feet of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at the elbow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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