except
Used to introduce a clause, phrase, verb infinitive, adverb or other non-noun complement forming an exception or qualification to something previously stated.
Conjunction
- Used to introduce a clause, phrase, verb infinitive, adverb or other non-noun complement forming an exception or qualification to something previously stated.
- You look a bit like my sister, except (that) she has longer hair.
- I never made fun of her except teasingly.
- To survive, I did everything except steal.
- Loosely, used to introduce a contrastive statement explaining why something wasn't successful, didn't happen, etc.
- They fired tear gas at us, except the wind was blowing the wrong way.
- I almost walked out, except I remembered the promise I had made.
- Unless; used to introduce a hypothetical case in which an exception may exist.
- And they sayde: We have no moo but five loves and two fisshes, except we shulde goo and bye meate for all this people. - 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter...
- If I ſay ſooth, I muſt report they were / As Cannons ouer-charg'd with double Cracks, / So they doubly redoubled ſtroakes vpon the Foe: / Except they meant to bathe in reeking Wounds, / Or memorize another Golgotha, / I...
- Offensive wars, except the cause be very just, I will not allow of. - 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York, published 2001, page 106:
Origin
Borrowed from Middle French excepter, from Latin exceptus.
Forms
Preposition
- Used to introduce an exception or qualification to something previously stated.
- There was nothing in the cupboard except a tin of beans.
- Except that he is wearing polka-dot drawers, he is buck naked. - 1983, Paul T. Rogers, Saul's Book:
- One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination. -...
Synonyms: apart from except for outtake with the exception of
Forms
Synonyms
apart apart from aside from bar barring besides but but for except except for excepting excluding forby modulo not counting other than outtake save save for saving with the exception of
Antonyms
Derived
Verb
- To exclude; to specify as being an exception.
- I find most people annoying — present company excepted, of course!
- But this [ban on circumcision] must have been a provocation, as the emperor Antoninus Pius later acknowledged by excepting the Jews. - 2007, Glen Bowersock, “Provocateur”, in London Review of Books, 29:4, page 17:
- To take exception, to object (to or against).
- to except to a witness or his testimony
- Except thou wilt except against my love. - c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
- Yea, but methinks I hear some man except at these words […]. - , vol.1, New York Review Books 2001, p.312