Nearby means close in distance to where you are or to something else. If your best friend lives nearby, you can walk or bike to their house without much effort. A nearby park is one you can reach quickly. When you're reading a treasure map and it says “the gold is buried nearby,” you know you don't have to travel far.

The word works as both an adjective (the nearby store) and an adverb (sitting nearby). You might tell someone “sit nearby” if you want them close enough to see what you're working on, or you might notice a “nearby table” when you're looking for a place to sit in a crowded cafeteria.

What counts as nearby depends on context. In a city, a nearby restaurant might be two blocks away. On a farm, a nearby town might be ten miles down the road. When astronomers say a star is nearby, they might mean it's only four light-years away, which sounds ridiculous until you remember that most stars are thousands of light-years distant.

The opposite of nearby is distant or far away. Understanding whether something is nearby helps you make quick decisions about whether you can walk there, whether you need to hurry, or whether help can arrive in time.