Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

From \From\, prep. [AS. fram, from; akin to OS. fram out, OHG. &
   Icel. fram forward, Sw. fram, Dan. frem, Goth. fram from,
   prob. akin to E. forth. ?202. Cf. {Fro}, {Foremost}.]
   Out of the neighborhood of; lessening or losing proximity to;
   leaving behind; by reason of; out of; by aid of; -- used
   whenever departure, setting out, commencement of action,
   being, state, occurrence, etc., or procedure, emanation,
   absence, separation, etc., are to be expressed. It is
   construed with, and indicates, the point of space or time at
   which the action, state, etc., are regarded as setting out or
   beginning; also, less frequently, the source, the cause, the
   occasion, out of which anything proceeds; -- the aritithesis
   and correlative of to; as, it, is one hundred miles from
   Boston to Springfield; he took his sword from his side; light
   proceeds from the sun; separate the coarse wool from the
   fine; men have all sprung from Adam, and often go from good
   to bad, and from bad to worse; the merit of an action depends
   on the principle from which it proceeds; men judge of facts
   from personal knowledge, or from testimony.

         Experience from the time past to the time present.
                                                  --Bacon.

         The song began from Jove.                --Drpden.

         From high M[ae]onia's rocky shores I came. --Addison.

         If the wind blow any way from shore.     --Shak.

   Note: From sometimes denotes away from, remote from,
         inconsistent with. ``Anything so overdone is from the
         purpose of playing.'' --Shak. From, when joined with
         another preposition or an adverb, gives an opportunity
         for abbreviating the sentence. ``There followed him
         great multitudes of people . . . from [the land] beyond
         Jordan.'' --Math. iv. 25. In certain constructions, as
         from forth, from out, etc., the ordinary and more
         obvious arrangment is inverted, the sense being more
         distinctly forth from, out from -- from being virtually
         the governing preposition, and the word the adverb. See
         {From off}, under {Off}, adv., and {From afar}, under
         {Afar}, adv.

               Sudden partings such as press The life from out
               young hearts.                      --Byron.