accompany

To accompany someone is to go along with them. Walking a friend to the station, a nurse pushing a patient down the corridor to X-ray, a father accompanying his daughter to the front of the church.

It is the formal cousin of go with, and you meet it on signs and in letters: children under twelve must be accompanied by an adult. It takes no preposition — you accompany somebody, never accompany with somebody. Things accompany things as well: soup accompanied by warm bread, a rise in prices accompanied by a fall in sales, and the passive, accompanied by, is the shape you will see most. Music has its own use, where to accompany a singer is to play under them, which gives accompanist for the player and accompaniment for the part they play. In speech people say come with me; save accompany for writing and for the formal moment.