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britannica.com:
(1) The company receives millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

I can guess what, in (1), "in advertising revenue" means — it means "earning on advertising".
But I can't understand why it's possible to use "in" here.

So, what specifically does "in" mean here?
And could you show me please that meaning of "in" in a dictionary for which (1) would be appropriate as an example?

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  • Since you know what it means, is there some reason you can't look up dictionaries and find a definition that matches? What have you tried? What did you find?
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 5 at 9:02
  • The preposition in in the cited context doesn't really "mean" anything at all. You can tell this because it could be omitted entirely, or replaced by, for example, as, without changing the meaning of the containing utterance. It's just optional "syntactic glue".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Sep 5 at 16:12
  • @FumbleFingers "The company receives millions of dollars advertising revenue." - the variant with the omitted "in". I don't understand why it's grammatical. How do functions here relate to each other? Which of the following is correct? 1) "The company [ receives millions of dollars ] [ advertising revenue ]." — where "advertising revenue" is an adjunct; 2) "The company receives [ [ millions of dollars ] advertising revenue ]." — where "millions of dollars advertising revenue" is an object and "millions of dollars" is the modifier of "advertising revenue". Thanks.
    – Loviii
    Commented Sep 6 at 8:33
  • Re "I don't understand why it's grammatical". If you're not a native speaker you obviously won't "understand" a lot of preposition use in English, which will often be very different to any equivalent in your own language. But as my comment says, there's no need to understand this particular case, since the meaning of the containing utterance is normally quite clear anyway. Have a look at some written published instances of the sequence dollars salary every - there's no need to include in, as, or similar there.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Sep 6 at 10:38

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We use "in" it seems to among other things restrict the scope of what comes just before so as to give more information on it:

The company receives millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

The company receives millions of dollars in cash.

Britannica's senses which seem relevant:

5a — used to indicate the method, materials, or form of something

a note written in pencil.

11 — used to make a statement or description more limited or specific in meaning

They are slow in their movements.

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From the Britannica dictionary, look at definition 3a for the word 'in':

https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/in

3 a — used to indicate that someone or something belongs to or is included as part of something

  • She used to play in [=as a member of] a band.
  • There are 12 in a dozen. [=a dozen is equal to 12]

This is how the word 'in' is being used. The millions of dollars is a part of the revenue, therefore, the company can receive millions of dollars in revenue.

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OP's query:

"The company receives millions of dollars in advertising revenue." — What specifically does "in" mean here?

In this sentence the verb phrase**"receive in"** is used which actually means "get from". It is separated by the object "millions of dollars.".
Meanings of phrasal verbs are fixed and you can't understand the meaning by looking at the meaning of individual words. Quite often you have to look at the context.
For example:
"Get on" means "board a vehicle" and also "to make progress.

In OP's case "receive in" means "earn from" and the sentence means
The company gets millions of dollars from advertisement.

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  • Receive in? Never heard of that expression. Can't find it in the dictionary. I think you're making it too complicated. In is simply a preposition and its basic meaning in the OP is in the form of.
    – Peter Kirkpatrick
    Commented Sep 6 at 4:15
  • @PeterKirkpatrick It should be called a verb phrase. Corrected. I found many similar uses.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Sep 6 at 4:51
  • James, I wasn't questioning the label. Verb phrase, or phrasal verb, that's fine when it applies. But here it doesn't apply. Receive in is not a thing. It's simply a verb (receive), qualified by other elements in the sentence. Compare with your other example. Get on is a phrasal verb because it has additional meanings as a phrase that you wouldn't necessarily deduce from the individual words. But receive in has no such additional meanings.
    – Peter Kirkpatrick
    Commented Sep 6 at 5:29

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