Prepositions of Possession | Expressing BELONGING and ownership | ESL Cube

Prepositions of Possession show that something belongs to something/someone else, or that something has a particular characteristic.

What is it?
Expressing BELONGING and ownership

Word	Meaning	Example
of	Belonging — shows that one thing is part of or belongs to another	"The pages of the book are torn." / "The capital of Nigeria is Abuja."
with	Having a specific feature or characteristic	"A house with a red roof." / "A man with three children."
belonging to	Direct ownership (informal/spoken)	"That bag belongs to my mother."

Note: In English, possession is also expressed with apostrophe-s ('s):

[!NOTE]
Use of for describing what something belongs to or is part of. Use with to describe what something has.

of is used to show Part-Whole relationships: a slice of bread, the roof of the building
of shows group membership: a member of the team
with describes a feature or attribute of a person or thing
Apostrophe-s ('s) is more natural than "of" for people: say "John's car", not "the car of John"