with
Meanings
- Against.
- In the company of; alongside, close to; near to.
- In addition to; as an accessory to.
- Used to add supplemental information, especially to indicate simultaneous happening, or immediate succession or consequence.
- In support of.
- In regard to.
- To denote the accomplishment of cause, means, instrument, etc; – sometimes equivalent to by.
- Using as an instrument; by means of.
- Using as nourishment; more recently replaced by on.
- Having, owning.
- Affected by (a certain emotion or condition).
- Prompted by (a certain emotion).
- Along, together with others, in a group, etc.
- Alternative form of withe.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English with, from Old English wiþ (“against, opposite, toward, with”), from Proto-West Germanic *wiþi, a shortened form of Proto-Germanic *wiþrą (“against”). In Middle English, the word shifted to denote association rather than opposition, displacing Middle English mid (“with”), from Old English mid (“with”), from Proto-Germanic *midi; an earlier model of this meaning shift exists in cognate Old Norse við; elsewhere, the converse meaning shift is exemplified by Old South Arabian 𐩨𐩺𐩬 (byn, “between, amid”) spawning Old South Arabian 𐩨𐩬 (bn, “against”) and even likewise frequent reverse meaning 𐩨𐩬 (bn, “from”). The adverb sense is probably a semantic loan from various other Germanic languages, such as German mit, Norwegian med, and Swedish med.