Meanings
- archaicidiomaticusuallyVery near; close at hand.
I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these fighting cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion
1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC2 more examples
Many times in my life, standing in long sea-boots and streaming oilskins at the elbow of my commander on the poop of a homeward-bound ship making for the Channel, and gazing ahead into the gray and tormented waste, I have heard a weary sigh shape itself into a studiously casual comment
1904–1906, Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published October 1906, →OCLCShe had been brought up at the elbow of this country practitioner; she had lived with him as though she had been his daughter; she had been for years the ministering angel of his household; and, till her heart had opened to the natural love of womanhood, all her closest sympathies had been with him.
1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published April 1861, →OCLC
Cite this entry
at the elbow. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/at%20the%20elbow
“at the elbow.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/at%20the%20elbow. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “at the elbow,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/at%20the%20elbow.
Source: at the elbow on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.