onto
English · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
onto
- /ˈɒn.tuː/ UK, stressed
- /ˈɑn.tu/ Northern US, cot caught merger, stressed
- /ˈɔn.tu/ stressed
- /ˈɔn.tʉ/ Northern Ireland, Scotland, stressed
- /ˈɒn.tə/ UK, unstressed
- /ˈɑn.tə/ Northern US, cot caught merger, unstressed
- /ˈɔn.tə/ unstressed
- /ˈɔn.tə/ Northern Ireland, Scotland, unstressed
- /ˈɒn.tʊ/ UK, before vowel, unstressed
- /ˈɑn.tʊ/ Northern US, before vowel, cot caught merger
- /ˈɔn.tʊ/ before vowel, unstressed
- /ˈɔn.tʉ/ Northern Ireland, Scotland, before vowel
Rhymes with (unstressed, before consonants) -ɒntə
Where it comes from
From on + to, after into. Compare Saterland Frisian antou (“up to”).
preposition on to
- Arriving upon or on top of (speaking of a physical or metaphorical movement). My cat just jumped onto the keyboard.
- Aware of. The thought-police were onto my plans of world domination.
- Being an onto function with a codomain of (see below). The exponential function maps the set of real numbers onto the set of positive real numbers.
adjective on to
-
Attaining each of the values in its codomain; having its image equal to its codomain.
Considered as a function on the real numbers, the exponential function is not onto, as it never takes on values less than or equal to zero.
Similar: surjective
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: preposition, for, south, with, into, after, within, about, knowing, towards, regarding, wise, atop, over, aware, toward
Translations
Talk about this word "onto." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/onto. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. onto. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/onto "onto." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/onto.Cite this
@misc{onto_2026,
title = {onto},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/onto},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}