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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

beside.

Next to; at the side of.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

prep/bɪˈsaɪd/Received-Pronunciation/bɪˈsaɪd/General-American/biˈsaɪd/General-American/bəˈsaɪd/General-American

  1. Next to; at the side of.

    A small table beside the bed

  2. Not relevant to.

    That is beside the point / beside the topic / beside the subject / beside the focus of this discussion.

  3. Besides; in addition to.

    I'll need another dictionary beside this one.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English beside, besiden, bisyde (also besides > besides), from Old English be sīdan, bī sīdan (“by the side (of), on the side (of)”). Compare Saterland Frisian biesiede (“aside”), German Low German bisied (“aside”), German beiseite (“aside, to one side”). Compare also Dutch terzijde (“aside”). By surface analysis, be- + side.

adv/bɪˈsaɪd/Received-Pronunciation/bɪˈsaɪd/General-American/biˈsaɪd/General-American/bəˈsaɪd/General-American

  1. Otherwise; else; in addition; besides.

    literary · not-comparable · poetic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English beside, besiden, bisyde (also besides > besides), from Old English be sīdan, bī sīdan (“by the side (of), on the side (of)”). Compare Saterland Frisian biesiede (“aside”), German Low German bisied (“aside”), German beiseite (“aside, to one side”). Compare also Dutch terzijde (“aside”). By surface analysis, be- + side.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.