"from" - meanings, definitions, synonyms, thesaurus and antonyms

\From\, prep. [AS. fram, from; akin to OS. fram out, OHG. &
Icel. fram forward, Sw. fram, Dan. frem, Goth. fram from,
prob. akin to E. forth. ?202. Cf. {Fro}, {Foremost}.]
Out of the neighborhood of; lessening or losing proximity to;
leaving behind; by reason of; out of; by aid of; -- used
whenever departure, setting out, commencement of action,
being, state, occurrence, etc., or procedure, emanation,
absence, separation, etc., are to be expressed. It is
construed with, and indicates, the point of space or time at
which the action, state, etc., are regarded as setting out or
beginning; also, less frequently, the source, the cause, the
occasion, out of which anything proceeds; -- the aritithesis
and correlative of to; as, it, is one hundred miles from
Boston to Springfield; he took his sword from his side; light
proceeds from the sun; separate the coarse wool from the
fine; men have all sprung from Adam, and often go from good
to bad, and from bad to worse; the merit of an action depends
on the principle from which it proceeds; men judge of facts
from personal knowledge, or from testimony.

      Experience from the time past to the time present.
                                               --Bacon.

      The song began from Jove.                --Drpden.

      From high M[ae]onia's rocky shores I came. --Addison.

      If the wind blow any way from shore.     --Shak.

Note: From sometimes denotes away from, remote from,
      inconsistent with. ``Anything so overdone is from the
      purpose of playing.'' --Shak. From, when joined with
      another preposition or an adverb, gives an opportunity
      for abbreviating the sentence. ``There followed him
      great multitudes of people . . . from [the land] beyond
      Jordan.'' --Math. iv. 25. In certain constructions, as
      from forth, from out, etc., the ordinary and more
      obvious arrangment is inverted, the sense being more
      distinctly forth from, out from -- from being virtually
      the governing preposition, and the word the adverb. See
      {From off}, under {Off}, adv., and {From afar}, under
      {Afar}, adv.

            Sudden partings such as press The life from out
            young hearts.                      --Byron.