Beside

How to spell beside

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce beside

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does beside mean?

1. prepositionAt the side of; immediately next to a person or thing in physical position.
2. prepositionIn the fixed phrase 'beside oneself', so overcome by emotion that one seems out of one's normal state.

Beside in a sentence

• She parked the car beside the loading dock.

• She was beside herself with worry when the flight was cancelled.

• The dog slept beside the radiator all winter.

• He was beside himself after losing the contract.

Where does beside come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English, where the phrase be sīdan literally meant 'by the side' of something. The element be- is the same unstressed 'by' that survives in words like 'before' and 'behind', while sīde meant the flank or edge of a body or object, a sense the modern noun 'side' still carries. Over the medieval period the two words fused into a single preposition meaning 'at the side of' or 'next to', and the spelling settled with one s and a final silent e. A closely related form, 'besides', grew up alongside it with an added adverbial -s and drifted toward the separate meaning 'in addition to', which is exactly why the two are so easy to mix up in writing. Remembering that 'beside' is simply 'by' plus 'side' helps fix both the single s and the connection to physical position.

How the word is built

• be- (Old English be: by, near)
• side (Old English sīde: flank, edge)