unless
Except on a specified condition; if not.
Conjunction
- Except on a specified condition; if not.
- I’m leaving unless I get a pay rise.
- You can't go out unless it stops raining.
- Unless part of the staff, you are not allowed beyond this point.
- If not; used with counterfactual conditionals.
- Who would know of Alexander or Caesar, or would respect the Stoics or the Peripatetics, unless they had been distinguished by the memorials of writers? - 1159, John of Salisbury, Policraticus, edited by Cary J....
- And Joab said, As God liveth, unless thou hadst spoken, surely then in the morning the people had gone up every one from following his brother. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert...
- Unless He were omnipotent, we could not be sure of His ability to bless us. - 1867, William Robinson Pirie, Natural Theology: An Inquiry Into the Fundamental Principles of Religious, Moral, and Political Science, page...
- Except if; used with hypothetical conditionals.
- Q. If Lieutenant P. had given the word "Fire," would you have fired, and at what?—A. I should not have known, unless he had told me what to fire at. - 1809, The Naval Chronicle for 1809: Containing a General and...
- Lie down and finish out the night, since you are here; but, for heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut! - 1847, Emily Brontë, chapter III, in...
- Suppose Breugel had done the whole painting with no legs. Then, titled as it is, it would be mystifying, unless someone were to say: the boy has fallen in the waters and they have closed over him, calm is restored, life...
Origin
From Middle English unlesse, earlier on lesse (modern on + less), from (not) on lesse (than) (“(not) on a less compelling condition (than)”). The quality of negation in the word and the lack of stress changed on to un-.