English Grammar

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES with 'AT and 'FOR'

Set phrases or groups of words introduced with the prepositions 'at' and 'for'.

Prepositional phrases are set phrases or groups of words introduced by a preposition.

Below are some examples of commonly-used propositional phrases with 'AT' and 'FOR', with their meaning and a sentence showing how they are used.

Preposition	Prepositional phrase	Meaning	Example
AT	At an advantage	In a favourable position that makes success more likely	Sophie's computer skills puts her at an advantage.
	At a disadvantage	In an unfavourable position that reduces the chances of success	Without computer skills Eva is at a disadvantage.
	At any cost / at all costs	no matter how much effort or money is required	We must avoid the spread of the virus at any cost / at all costs.
	At a distance	Not too close	The policeman followed the suspect at a distance.
	At any rate	anyway; anyhow	Nobody knew much about the problem. At any rate Tom didn't.
	At ease	Comfortable and relaxed	I was immediately at ease with the group.
	At a glance	As soon as you see something	The technician identified the problem at a glance.
	At hand	Close or very near	I always keep a dictionary at hand when I'm writing.
	At large	still free; not yet captured	The suspected murderer is still at large.
	At length	For a long time	He spoke at length about the dangers of alcohol.
	At liberty	Be allowed/be free to do something	I am not at liberty to reveal the details.
	At most	At the maximum	It will cost you 50€ at the most.
	At odds (with)	In disagreement	The two heirs are at odds with each other.
	At once	Immediately; instantly	It's urgent. Tell him to call me at once!
	At the latest	No later than	The boss wants the report by Friday at the latest.
	At random	In no particular order	Samples were distributed at random.
	At risk	In danger	The house is at risk if the river overflows.
	At the outset	At the begininning or start	It all seemed very simple at the outset.
	At short notice	A short time beforehand	I can't change the arrangements at (such) short notice.
	At a standstill	Stopped completely (for the moment)	Renovation work on the museum is at a standstill.
	At times	Occasionally; sometimes	The old lady behaves strangely at times.
FOR	For ages	For a long time	I haven't been downtown for ages!
	For a change	To do something different	Let's go hiking for a change.
	For instance	To give an example	John works late. For instance, yesterday he left the office at 9 pm.
	For nothing	In vain	The trains are on strike. I walked to the station for nothing!
	For nothing	At no cost	He gave me several books and dictionaries for nothing!
	For the sake of	For the purpose of; in the interest of	They stayed together for the sake of their children.
	For short	As a short form	William is his name, but he's called Bill for short.
	For now	Until a later time	That's all the information we have for now.
	For sale/rent/hire	Something offered to people to buy/rent/hire ...	That red car is for sale.
	For better or worse	Whatever the consequences	Anyway, I accepted the job, for better or worse.
	For want of	Because of a lack of	For want of a better place we set up camp in a field.
	For a while	For a period of time	I'd like to stop working and travel for a while.

More Prepositional Phrases:

« BY IN ON OUT UNDER WITHIN-WITHOUT »

Try these online exercises:

at-on-in

at-for-from-in-
into-of-with

into-onto-off-over-up

See also: Prepositions

more exercises

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