Learn English – What do you mean with…. vs What do you mean by

word-choice

Yes, the title is correctly expressing my question,
so which one of these :

  1. What do you mean with that?

  2. What do you mean by that?

Question :
i've been wondering which one of them that sounds more natural, at least like a native speaker would use.

Best Answer

As a basic question, "What do you mean by that?" is grammatical and idiomatic and means "Please explain the meaning of (or possibly justify) your previous statement more fully".

On the other hand, "What do you mean with that?" as a question by itself is completely unidiomatic, and would never be said by a native speaker.