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In just under two weeks, my first year at Yale will officially come to a close. It may be cliché, but it feels like just yesterday I walked through the gates of Morse College on an impossibly hot day to start my college career.

https://admissions.yale.edu/bulldogs-blogs/rhayna/2022/04/28/look-back-my-first-year-yale

According to dictionaries, "at" is used to say where something/somebody is or where something happens, which means it doesn't match with words of time. It rather should mean "spent while being in" to match with nouns of time: "my first day spent while being in Yale".

Why I post this post is, should I depend on contexts more than dictionaries in cases like this? Thank you for reading.

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/at

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    What dictionary did you check? Please edit to tell more about what you found. Simple, short words like "at" often have a lot of uses; this one gives at least six.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 25 at 1:30
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    There is nothing wrong with the example quote - at Yale is correct.
    – Billy Kerr
    Commented Jan 25 at 1:39
  • @AndyBonner I use the same dictionary, the Merriam, but I found it on Longman.
    – user183853
    Commented Jan 25 at 3:04
  • @BillyKerr I know. I mean there's no corresponding meaning in some dictionaries.
    – user183853
    Commented Jan 25 at 3:04
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    Common prepositions like at, in, on,... are virtually "content-free" in many contexts - they're just the syntactic glue holding the meaningful words together. Don't waste time trying to understand "the meaning" of at as a "word" - focus on understanding the overall sense of the containing utterance.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 25 at 4:10

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Although this example is an odd one, since it seems easy to find a dictionary definition that matches this use of "at," your basic point is sound.

Yes, sometimes it's possible to find a word used in a certain way, and not to find a matching explanation in a dictionary. For one thing, any dictionary that tried to cover every usage of every word would be very long. The Oxford English Dictionary tries for this kind of in-depth coverage. But some other dictionaries focus on only the most common usages, since putting in lots more would make it more confusing and harder to find the common ones.

And yes, context is the most powerful tool to discern meaning. That's why many dictionaries give examples of the word in a sentence!

That said, this specific problem seems solvable. "According to dictionaries, 'at' is used to say where something/somebody is"—well, that's what we have here. "My first year at Yale"—Yale is where this somebody is. Perhaps you're confused because you expect something like "my first year is at Yale." But that's just about phrases, clauses, and sentences. Consider this: "The chair at the table is red." The core of this sentence is "the chair is red," but the phrase "at the table" does tell where the chair is.

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  • Yes, the dictionary only says that usage: my first year is at Yale; which is nonsense; which means you get my point, though. Dictionaries should say at least that "at" is used to say the mentioned time when somebody is at the mentioned place.
    – user183853
    Commented Jan 25 at 3:13
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    "My first year" = "The first year I have spent" at Yale.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 25 at 9:38
  • @Prettiestguyever - 'my first year is at Yale; which is nonsense' - this is not 'nonsense': - For three years I will be a travelling professor (or student): my first year is at Yale; my second year is at Harvard; my third is at Oxford'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jan 25 at 9:56
  • @MichaelHarvey I mean "be" as "be positioned". Though, I've understood what you were trying to say.
    – user183853
    Commented Jan 25 at 10:20

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