Compound Prepositions

Compound prepositions are prepositions made up of two or more words that function as single unit. When you see the word “compound” in English grammar, always remember that you’re dealing with two or more elements. 

Be careful about confusing compound prepositions with prepositional phrases.

Common examples of compound prepositions include: “because of”, “on top of”, “out of”, “next to”, “according to”, “instead of”. You can see in these examples that compound prepositions end with prepositions. However, prepositional phrases end with the object of the preposition, also known as the noun or pronoun that follows the preposition in the phrase.