Word.ws English Dictionary

by

/baɪ/

by preposition: near or next to. Also the alternative form of bye.

Preposition

by

  1. Near or next to.
    • The mailbox is by the bus stop.
  2. From one side of something to the other, passing close by; past.
    • The stream runs by our back door.
    • He ran straight by me.
  3. Not later than (the given time); not later than the end of (the given time interval); before.
    • Be back by ten o'clock!
    • We'll find someone by the end of March.
  4. After a given amount of time has elapsed or a given event has occurred.
    • By February, we were all sick of the cold.
    • By the time I realized I had left my phone at home, I was already two blocks from work.
  5. Following a passive verb.
    • The matter was decided by the chairman.
    • The boat was swamped by the water.
  6. Following a noun.
    • There was a call by the unions for a 30% pay rise.
  7. Following an adjective.
    • I was aghast by what I saw.
    • In other directions the fields and sky were so much of one colour by the snow that it was difficult in a hasty glance to tell whereabouts the horizon occurred […].1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, 2005 Barnes & Noble Classics publication of 1912 Wessex edition, p.109
  8. Indicates the creator of a work: Existing through the authorship etc. of.
    • There are many well-known plays by William Shakespeare
  9. Indicates a means of achieving something: Involving/using the means of.
    • I'd know you anywhere by your gravelly voice.
    • I avoided the guards by moving only when they weren't looking.
  10. Indicates an authority according to which something is done.
    • By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife.
    • I live by my own code of ethics.
    1. Invokes an authority in an oath.
      • By Jove! I think she's got it!
      • By all that is holy, I'll put an end to this.
  11. Indicates a means of classification or organisation.
    • I sorted the items by category.
    • Table 1 shows details of our employees broken down by sex and age.
  12. Indicates the amount of change, difference or discrepancy
    • Our stock is up by ten percent.
    • We won by six goals to three.
Show 9 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. In the formulae X by X and by Xs, indicates a steady progression, one X after another.
    • We went through the book page by page.
    • We crawled forward by inches.
  2. [with the] Acted on in units of the specified size or measure. (Sometimes hyperbolically)
    • sold by the yard; cheaper if bought by the gross
    • While sitting listening to the radio by the hour, she can drink brandy by the bucketful!
  3. Per; with or in proportion to each.
    • His health was deteriorating by the day.
    • The pickers are paid by the fortnight by the American bushel.
  4. Indicates a referenced source: According to.
    • He cheated by his own admission.
    • By my reckoning, we should be nearly there.
  5. Used to separate dimensions when describing the size of something.
    • It is easy to invert a 2-by-2 matrix.
    • The room was about 4 foot by 6 foot.
  6. Multiplied by or (chiefly South Asia) divided by.
  7. (horse breeding) Designates a horse's sire (“male parent”).
    • She's a lovely little filly, by Big Lad, out of Damsel in Distress.
  8. (chiefly Yeshivish) At; with; among.
    • Are you eating by Rabbi Fischer? (at the house of)
    • By Chabad, it's different.
  9. In a windward direction, sailing near to the direction from which the wind is blowing.

Adverb

by (not comparable)

  1. Along a path which runs past someone or something.
    • I watched the parade as it passed by.
  2. In the vicinity, near.
    • There was a shepherd close by.
    • [The helmsman] steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk […]1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part II
  3. To or at a place, as a residence or place of business.
    • I'll stop by on my way home from work.
    • We're right near the lifeguard station. Come by before you leave.
  4. (uncommon outside the phrase 'put by') Aside, away.
    • The women spent much time after harvest putting jams by for winter and spring.
  5. (uncommon except in set phrases) Beyond or past a certain point.
    • I'll somehow manage to get by.

Adjective

by (not comparable)

  1. Out of the way, off to one side.
    • a by path; a by room
  2. Subsidiary, incidental.
    • by catch; a by issue

Proper noun capitalized: BY

BY

  1. The station code of Byculla railway station in India.

Noun capitalized: BY

BY (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of attribution.

Also used as

by is also the alternative form of bye.

by is also the dated form of bye.

by meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog and Arabic

by in Hindi

near, or next to
जानिब jānib
not later than
तक tak
indicates the agent of a passive verb
...से

by in Urdu

not later than
تک tak
indicates the agent of a passive verb
...سے

by in Tagalog

indicates creator of a work
ni, ng, nina

by in Arabic

indicates a means
بِـ bi-
with the authority of
بِـ bi-
near, or next to
بِجَانِب bi-jānib, جنب ganb
not later than
عِنْدَ ʕinda, فِي fī, حوالي ḥawālī
More languagesFewer languages
by in Malay
dengan, oleh, di sebelah, menjelang
by in Indonesian
kena, di sebelah ..., oleh
by in Persian
تا tâ
by in Thai
โดย doy, เคียง kiang, ติดกับ dtìt gàp, ข้าง kâang
by in Vietnamese
bằng cách, theo cách, trước, bên cạnh

Examples of by in a sentence

  • I'll have been cycling for longer than two hours by lunchtime.
  • He was protected by his body armour.
  • By Pythagoras' theorem, we can calculate the length of the hypotenuse.
  • We went by bus down to the water to feed the ducks.
  • You can only get there by water.
  • I discovered it by chance.

All 40 example sentences with by

Antonyms of by

Forms of by

Preposition
alternative formbye
Noun
pluralbys

Origin of by

From Middle English by, bi, from Old English bī (“by; near; around”), from Proto-West Germanic *bī, from Proto-Germanic *bi (“near; by; around; about”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi. Cognate with West Frisian by (“by; near”), Afrikaans by (“at; by; near”), Saterland Frisian bie (“near; by”), Dutch bij (“near; by”), German Low German bi (“by; near; at”), German bei (“by; near; at”).

From the preposition by.

Words formed from by

Phrases with by

166 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with by

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about by

What does by mean?
By means near or next to.
What is by in Hindi?
By in Hindi is जानिब (jānib), तक (tak), ...से. See By meaning in Hindi.
How do you use by in a sentence?
I'll have been cycling for longer than two hours by lunchtime.
What part of speech is by?
By can be a preposition, an adverb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce by?
By is pronounced /baɪ/.

Words near by in the dictionary

  1. BWWM
  2. bx
  3. bxes
  4. BXO
  5. bxs
  6. by
  7. by a hair's breadth
  8. by a landslide
  9. by a long chalk
  10. by a long shot
  11. by a long way

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by (page history and authors); BY (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Pvanp7-by.wav, en-us-by.ogg.

Cite this entry: “by.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/by. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.