Below means lower down than something else. The flat below yours, the cabin below deck, your name below the line on the form.
It stands against above, and it works two ways: as a preposition, below the window, and on its own as an adverb — see below, the valley below, footsteps from below. With numbers it means less than a level: below zero, below average, below the poverty line. Its close neighbour is under, and the difference is cover and contact. The cat is under the table, right beneath it and in its shadow; the shop is below the flat, further down the building. Under also owns the fixed less-than phrases — under 18, under an hour — where below would sound wrong.
1prepositionbelowIn a lower position than something else.~26%
“The kitchen is below the bedroom.”
2prepositionparticularLess than a particular level, number or standard.~36%
“It was three degrees below freezing.”
3adverbfurtherFurther down; underneath.~2%
“From the bridge we watched the river below.”
4adverblaterLater on the page, in a piece of writing.~36%
“Full details are given below.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Below was made inside English rather than borrowed: be- plus low, written in Middle English as bilooghe. Before it existed, English said beneath, or alow, for the same idea, and beneath is still with us.
Middle English
bilooghe
English, today
below
From Middle English bilooghe. From Middle English bilooghe, equivalent to be- + low. Compare also earlier Middle English alogh, alow, aloȝ, alowe (“below”), benethen (“beneath”), Dutch omlaag (“downwards”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA