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of — expressing the relationship between a part and a whole

Part of speech: PREPOSITION

Definition: expressing the relationship between a part and a whole

Pronunciation (IPA): /əv/

Example Sentences

  • The smell of my roommate's cooking is worse than a chemical weapon of mass destruction.
  • She is the CEO of a major tech company.
  • The secret of happiness is pretending you're happy until you forget you're pretending.

of

PREPOSITION

[/əv/]

expressing the relationship between a part and a whole

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🎤Pronunciation

🇺🇸 US/əv/
🇬🇧 UK/ɒv/

🌳Etymology

Origin

The preposition 'of' derives from Old English 'of', a fundamental Germanic preposition used to express possession, relationship, and origin. It belongs to a family of common Germanic prepositions that have remained relatively stable across Germanic languages.

Breakdown

The word is a monomorphemic preposition with no productive morphological breakdown; 'of' is an irreducible functional word inherited directly from Old English with cognates in other Germanic languages (German 'ab', Dutch 'af').

🎵Rhyme

🔗Collocations

kind of
because of
instead of
made of
think of
dream of
full of

📝Examples

😄 Fun example

“The smell of my roommate's cooking is worse than a chemical weapon of mass destruction.”

“She is the CEO of a major tech company.”

😄 Fun example

“The secret of happiness is pretending you're happy until you forget you're pretending.”

“Most of the students passed the exam.”

📚Related Words

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