Beside vs Besides: Meaning and Usage

Introduction

One tiny letter separates beside from besides, and that single "s" carries a lot of weight. Drop it and you get a preposition about physical position — standing beside a friend, parking beside the curb. Add it and the word pivots to a totally different job: pointing to extra information, introducing a side thought, or stacking on another item.

The trouble is that both words look and sound almost the same, and older writers actually treated them as swappable. Dickens, Austen, even the King James Bible use the two forms loosely. Modern editors, though, treat them as distinct tools. Mixing them up is one of the quickest ways to make a sentence feel off — or worse, change its meaning.

This guide from dictionary.wiki walks through the full picture: the definitions, the fixed phrases that only take one form, and a handful of tests you can run on any sentence to pick the right word on the first try.

The Meaning of Beside

Beside is a preposition. Its main job is to locate one thing in relation to another in space — alongside, next to, right by. A few older or figurative uses linger (mainly inside idioms), but spatial meaning does nearly all the work today.

Core Senses

1. Next to / alongside: "A tall oak stood beside the farmhouse."
2. Compared with: "His first novel feels thin beside his later work." (Uncommon, slightly literary.)
3. Apart from (archaic / formal): "Beside minor typos, the draft was clean." (Modern writers would use besides here.)

Where the Word Comes From

The root is Old English be sidan, literally "by the side of." It has been in continuous use since before the 1100s. Across those centuries, the locational sense — being physically next to something — has stayed in the driver's seat.

Beside in Sentences

• "The cat slept beside the radiator, twitching in a dream."
• "My grandfather kept a framed photo beside the armchair."
• "Park the van beside the loading dock, not in front of it."
• "The bakery sits beside a used bookstore on Main Street."
• "She waited beside the arrivals gate with a handwritten sign."
• "The two cottages lean toward each other beside a gravel lane."

The Meaning of Besides

Besides pulls double duty. As a preposition it means "in addition to" or "other than." As an adverb it means "also," "anyway," or "on top of that" — the kind of word you use to tack on a reason or shift the argument.

Preposition: In Addition To / Apart From

1. "Besides Spanish, Marco is picking up Portuguese."
2. "Who showed up at the rehearsal besides the conductor?"
3. "Besides the upfront fee, there are monthly service charges."

Adverb: Also / Anyway

1. "I don't feel like going. Besides, the last train leaves early."
2. "The apartment was tiny. Besides, the neighborhood felt sketchy."
3. "He isn't right for the role. Besides, he never sent in his reel."

Where the Word Comes From

The "-s" on the end is the same old adverbial marker you see on always, nowadays, afterwards, and sometimes. Slapped onto beside, it dragged the meaning away from physical location and toward the ideas of "extra" and "as well."

Quick Comparison at a Glance

Examples in Real Sentences

Beside — Next To Something

• "A small fountain bubbled beside the café entrance."
• "He tucked his phone beside the pillow before falling asleep."
• "Can I take the seat beside the aisle?"
• "The bike path winds beside the canal for several kilometers."
• "She set the toolbox beside the workbench and got to work."

Besides — In Addition To

• "Besides teaching, Priya writes reviews for a local magazine."
• "What instruments do you play besides piano?"
• "Besides the rent increase, utilities have gone up too."
• "Nobody besides the security guard had keys to the archive."
• "Besides being fast, the new sensor is far more accurate."

Besides — Anyway / Also

• "The concert sold out. Besides, I couldn't find parking last time."
• "I'd rather stay in. Besides, there's a storm rolling in."
• "She won't loan us the cabin. Besides, we can book a rental."
• "The budget has already blown past projections. Besides, the deadline is unrealistic."

A Tricky Pair

Look at how the same subject behaves under each word:

• "Elena sat beside her brother." (The two were next to each other — a physical fact.)
• "Besides her brother, Elena invited two cousins." (The brother is one of several — extra people were added.)

"Beside Oneself" — The Idiom

When someone is beside themselves, they're so overtaken by emotion that they can barely function. The image is vivid: the person has figuratively stepped outside their own body, unable to hold the feeling inside. It works with joy, rage, grief, worry — any intense state.

• "Tomas was beside himself with relief when the rescue team finally arrived."
• "She was beside herself with frustration at the third canceled flight."
• "The kids were beside themselves with excitement on the morning of the trip."
• "He was beside himself with worry until his daughter called from the airport."

The idiom always takes beside — no "s." This is one of the rare spots where beside steps away from its spatial meaning and still survives in everyday English.

"Beside the Point" — The Idiom

Something that is beside the point is off-topic, unrelated, or irrelevant to whatever is actually being discussed. The expression reaches back to the older "away from" sense of beside.

• "Whether the email was polite is beside the point — it never arrived."
• "The price is beside the point; we need the feature to ship on time."
• "Your history with him is beside the point of this meeting."

Writing "besides the point" is a frequent slip. The fixed form uses beside, full stop. For more on expressions like this, our other guides on English grammar basics are a good starting place.

Mistakes Writers Make

Mistake 1: Using "Beside" for Addition

Wrong: "Beside the keynote, there were three workshops."
Right: "Besides the keynote, there were three workshops."

Nothing is being positioned next to anything here — items are being added to a list. That's besides.

Mistake 2: Using "Besides" for Position

Wrong: "He set his coffee besides the laptop."
Right: "He set his coffee beside the laptop."

The coffee has a physical location next to the laptop. That calls for beside.

Mistake 3: "Besides the Point"

Wrong: "Honestly, that's besides the point."
Right: "Honestly, that's beside the point."

The locked-in idiom is "beside the point." You'll see the wrong version constantly — probably right up there with confusions over your and you're.

Tricks to Remember the Difference

Think "S" = Stacking On

The extra "s" on besides is a mental sticky note: you're stacking something on — another item, another reason, another person. No stacking? No "s." Just position? Use beside.

Swap In a Synonym

• If "next to" fits cleanly, the word you want is beside.
• If "in addition to" or "also" fits, reach for besides.

Check the Sentence Opening

When a word kicks off a sentence and is followed by a comma — "Besides, we already paid the deposit" — it's almost always besides doing adverb duty. Beside rarely appears at the front of a sentence because position-based prepositions usually need a subject first.

Test Yourself

1. "The hammock hung _____ two pine trees." → beside
2. "_____, I already promised my sister I'd help her move." → Besides
3. "Who came to the rehearsal dinner _____ the bride's parents?" → besides
4. "A cup of tea cooled on the table _____ her notebook." → beside
5. "_____ calculus, he's also retaking physics this term." → Besides
6. "She was _____ herself when the dog finally came home." → beside
7. "Whose fault it is? That's _____ the point right now." → beside
8. "I don't need anything _____ a quiet corner and a cold drink." → besides

Wrap-Up

Two lookalikes, two different jobs. Beside is about location — think of it as a picture of one thing sitting next to another — and it locks into the fixed phrases "beside oneself" and "beside the point." Besides is the add-on word: as a preposition it means "in addition to," and as an adverb it means "anyway" or "also." If the sentence is adding something or stacking a reason, the "s" belongs there. If the sentence is just placing one thing next to another, drop it.

For more word pairs that trip people up, head back to dictionary.wiki, or jump straight into our explainers on then vs than and fewer vs less.