How to use And

And is one of the seven coordinating conjunctions. It joins together words, phrases and clauses that are grammatically similar. And is used between the words or clauses that it joins.  

noun+noun 

• He ordered a beer and a sandwich. 

adjective+adjective 

• She was tall and thin.  

verb+verb 

• I sat and listened to live music.  

phrase+phrase 

• My first cousin and his wife's father both work at the same institution.  

clause+clause 

• I turned the handle and the door opened.  

Instead of to 

In spoken English And is used after verbs such as go, come, try, write, etc. to show the purpose of an action.  

• Come and see me soon.  
• Let's go and find your bag.  
• I'll try and do my best. 

For emphasis 

You use and between two words that are the same in order to give special importance to something.  

• More and more people are using social media.  
• We discussed the problem for hours and hours! 
• The little boy cried and cried. 

At the beginning of a sentence 

In spoken English you start a sentence with and to introduce a comment, statement, question, etc.  

• 'I told him what happened.' 'And what was his reaction?' 

In numbers 

When you say numbers (not dates) aloud, you use and after the words hundred, thousand and before the last number. 

• 205: two hundred and five 
• 733: seven hundred and thirty three 
• 5, 861: five thousand, eight hundred and sixty one 

And is also used between whole numbers and fractions.  

• 5³/₄: five and three quarters 

Plus 

You use and in calculations to show that one number is added to another 

• 2 and 6 makes 8.