Question about 'by'

English grammar questions, answered by Alan

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taiucu
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Question about 'by'

Post by taiucu »

Hello everyone, i have a question for what concern the word 'by':
Does the 'by' in this phrase: "By the age of 25 he became interested in cooking" mean "from the age of", "at the age of" or "within the age of"?
Because I've seen that the english word 'by' has a lot of meaning and so i could not understand what does it mean in different cases...
Thank you very much!
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Alan
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Re: Question about 'by'

Post by Alan »

Actually it's inappropriately used here.

We might, however, say

By the age of 25 he HAD BECOME interested in cooking.

and 'by' would mean 'at, or sometime before'.

It indicates a possible time period of which the time of reference is the end-point.
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