How to use prepositions of movement in English?

Prepositions of movement (a.k.a. prepositions of direction, or prepositions of motion) are used in phrases that show the direction of movement from one place to another:

preposition of movement

The bus drove across the bridge.

I sent a postcard to my mother.

We walked past the restaurant.

Think about all the places you go during the day or how you move objects from one place to another. Did you walk to work today? Maybe you put your coffee cup on your desk. Or maybe you looked into a mirror to fix your hair. There are lots of different ways that we move through our day, and prepositions of movement help us describe those movements!

In this post, we’ll look at how prepositions of movement function, how we form prepositional phrases of movement, and what the most common prepositions of movement are. Let’s jump in

What is a prepositional phrase of movement?

A prepositional phrase of movement describes the direction something moves by combining a preposition of movement and a noun or noun phrase. The noun indicates a location where something starts its movement, ends its movement, or else the path that the movement takes:

preposition

noun / noun phrase

🚶 I walked across the street.

🚲 They usually ride their bikes along the river.

🚳 There’s no bicycle parking here. Let’s circle around the block and look somewhere else.

💌 My grandparents sent me a postcard from Sweden.

🐈‍⬛ The cat jumped into the empty box.

🏃 Allison always jogs through the park for exercise.

A prepositional phrase of movement will usually come after the verb phrase (the verb and its objects)

verb phrase

prepositional phrase of movement

The family walked along the river.

My brother’s train is arriving from Paris.

He threw the garbage into the trash can.

Usually if there is an object, the prepositional phrase only describes the movement of the object, but with some verbs (e.g. brought) the subject and object move together.

objectprepositional phrase of movement

I sent a postcard to my mother.

describes how the letter moved

Ellen brought a book to the library.

describes how the book (and therefore Ellen) moved

But just because these are prepositions of movement doesn’t mean the movement is always something we can see! These prepositions can be used to describe physical movements or movements that are more abstract:

I looked into the mirror.
My sight has a “direction” from me to the inside of the mirror, but no object is moving.
We will spread the project work across different teams.
This movement is more abstract — it’s not a physical movement we can see, but the project work will be moving from team to team.

Can you think of any other movements that aren’t physical?

What are the most common prepositions of movement?

There are many different prepositions that we can use in English to start a prepositional phrase of movement. In this section, we’ll take a look at how we can use some of the most common prepositions of movement:

to
toward
from
up
down
across
into
out of

onto
off of
along
around
over
under
through

‘To’

To is one of the most common prepositions, and when it is a preposition of movement, it comes before the final destination, or where the movement will end:

My brother just moved to Australia.
We walked to the park yesterday.
I gave the book to Jessica.

Because to only tells you the final destination, it doesn’t tell you much about what happened between the start of the movement and the end. So in the example “We walked to the park yesterday”, the speaker may have stopped at places along the way, but the ultimate destination of the walk was the park.

‘Toward(s)’

The noun that follows toward(s) describes the destination the movement is “aimed at.” We use toward before a destination that has not been reached

Molly walked toward the cafe.
We drove toward Campbell and Main.
The students ran toward the playground.

In each of these examples, we only know that the subjects are moving in the general direction of something, but we don’t know for sure that it’s the final destination of their movement.

‘From’

From shows the starting point of a movement:

She just arrived from Chicago.
I received a gift from my aunt.
The cat jumped from the table.

‘Up’ and ‘down’

Up shows a movement from a lower point to a higher point. The movement starts and ends on the noun it precedes:

The toddler crawled up the stairs.
It took three hours to hike up the mountain.
We passed the message up the line to the people at the front.

Whereas down is the opposite and shows a movement from a higher point to a lower point on the noun it precedes:

The river flows down the mountain.
The dog ran down the stairs.
I poured the water down the drain.

‘Across’

Across indicates a motion from one side of something to the other side:

The sidewalk was closed, so they walked across the street.
He has to drive across town to pick up his order.
This summer we are driving across the country in a van.

Usually this describes movement in a straight line, but sometimes it can describe something that spreads out on a surface:

The spilled milk spread across the table.

‘Into’ and ‘in’

Into and in describe the movement of something from an open space to a closed (or mostly closed) space:

The cat jumped into the box.
We finally got into the airport after waiting in the security line.
I put the letter in the mailbox.
I threw all the ingredients in the pan.

Usually this describes movement in a straight line, but sometimes it can describe something that spreads out on a surface:

The spilled milk spread across the table.

‘Out of’

Out of is the opposite of into – it’s the movement of something from a closed space to an open space:

He took the gift out of the bag.
The dog ran out of the room.
The magician pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

‘Onto’ and ‘on’

Onto shows the movement to the top of something. On can sometimes be used this way too:

The president walked onto the stage.
We had to drive the car onto the ferry in order to cross the channel.
I put the pot on the stove.

‘Off (of)’

Off (of) is the opposite of onto and shows the movement from the top of something to a different location (note that it is usually optional to use the of):

I took the top off of the box.
The cat likes to push cups off the counter.
He grabbed a book off the nearest shelf.

‘Along’

Along describes a movement that follows the same path or route as something else:

We hiked along the canyon edge.
When the weather is nice, we like to walk along the river.
Tourists lined up along the beach to watch the dolphins.

‘Around’

Around is a circular movement on the outside edge of something:

This road is closed, so we have to drive around the block.
Let’s walk around the pond and look at ducks.
This road is terrible. You have to drive around all the potholes!

‘Over’ and ‘under’

Over indicates a movement on top of something, usually from one side to the other, and usually not touching the surface of that thing:

I threw the ball over the fence.
A bird flew over our heads.
We’ve gone a little bit over the budget on this project.

Under indicates a movement of something to below the current position:

Uh oh, I think the cat ran under the house.
The car drove under the bridge.
I slid the rug under the coffee table in the living room.

‘Through’

Through is a movement inside the middle of something, starting on one side and moving to the opposite side:

We walked through a tunnel in the mountains.
Ambulances can drive through red lights.
This street goes right through the middle of the city.

‘Past’

Past is for a movement that comes close to something else and then continues beyond it:

On the way to the park, we drove past the school.
We walked past several ice cream stores on our way here.
I accidentally drove past your house, so I had to turn around and come back!

Prepositions of movement vs. adverbs of movement

Prepositions of movement are often used with adverbs of movement. But what is the difference?

An adverb of movement serves the same purpose as a prepositional phrase of movement — it’s showing the movement that something takes. However, an adverb is a single word that describes the motion all by itself:
I fell down.
A preposition of movement, on the other hand, must work together with a noun or noun phrase:
preposition of movementnoun
I fell down the stairs.

In English, we often use both an adverb of movement and a prepositional phrase of movement to describe the motion even more clearly. Usually the adverb comes directly before the prepositional phrase:

adverb of movementpreposition of movementnoun

I ran up over the hill.

Up (adverb) describes the first part of the motion and over the hill (prepositional phrase) describes how the movement continued.

I walked down to the store.

Down (adverb) describes the direction of movement on a vertical axis, and to the store (prepositional phrase) describes the destination.

What other direction words have you heard stacked together?

Summary

In this post, we learned a lot about prepositions of movement, including:

Prepositions of movement and prepositional phrases of movement describe the direction of a motion.
You can make a prepositional phrase of movement by putting a preposition and an object together.
The most common prepositions of movement are to, toward, from, up, down, across, into, onto, along, around, over, under, and through, but we also saw some others!

If you want to dive into some more prepositions, check out some of the posts we linked above! Or, if you’re ready for a little preposition practice, check out our prepositions of movement activities!