within

1. 1
   inside limitspreposition

   Inside the limits, reach, or scope of something.

   Keep the children within sight.

   Her guess about the size of the crowd turned out to be within a few hundred of the official count.

   UsageWith a distance or margin, usually within + amount + of: within a mile of the station, within five seconds of the record.

   Oppositebeyond, outside

   Note

   Here the boundary is no longer a wall but a reach: hearing, sight, a margin of error. The idiom within an inch of measures a near miss, something that almost happened. Sports reporting uses closed to within seven points for a gap that is narrowing.

2. 2
   physically insidepreposition

   In the inner part of; physically inside.

   A courtyard lies within the walls.

   Everything within the box was broken.

   UsageA shade more formal than inside: within the walls, but usually inside the drawer in everyday talk.

   Similarinside, in

   Oppositeoutside

   Note

   It sounds a shade more formal than inside, which is why it suits a walled courtyard or Poe's "a dream within a dream" better than a kitchen drawer. Most later uses keep the picture of an enclosure and change only the boundary, as in a range or margin or a time limit.

3. 3
   not later thanpreposition

   Before the stated period runs out; not later than.

   The parcel should arrive within a week.

   She learned the language within months.

   UsageWithin a week means at any time up to its end; in a week usually means when a week has passed.

   Similarinside

   Note

   A deadline drawn as an enclosure: within three days allows any moment up to the end of the third day. In narrative it measures speed instead, as in "Within two years, nearly every studio release was a talkie."

4. 4
   interior (formal)adverb

   In or into the interior, inside ('or do we go within?'), literary or formal.

   From within came the sound of music.

   Apply within, said the sign on the shop door.

   UsageMostly in from within and on signs such as Apply within; elsewhere inside is more usual.

   Similarinside, indoors

   Oppositeoutside

   Note

   The preposition with its object dropped: go within means go inside, and from within points to an inside the sentence never names. Yeats gives it to a speaker in his Oedipus who is proposing they go indoors.

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