except

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Contents

English [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Latin exceptus.

Pronunciation [edit]

Verb [edit]

except (third-person singular simple present excepts, present participle excepting, simple past and past participle excepted)

  1. (transitive) To exclude; to specify as being an exception.
    • 2007, Glen Bowersock, ‘Provocateur’, London Review of Books 29:4, p. 17:
      But this [ban on circumcision] must have been a provocation, as the emperor Antoninus Pius later acknowledged by excepting the Jews.
  2. (intransitive) To take exception, to object (to or against).
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. 1, New York Review Books 2001, p. 312:
      Yea, but methinks I hear some man except at these words...
    • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, Urne-Burial, Penguin 2005, p. 23:
      The Athenians might fairly except against the practise of Democritus to be buried up in honey; as fearing to embezzle a great commodity of their Countrey
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 96:
      he was a great lover of music, and perhaps, had he lived in town, might have passed for a connoisseur; for he always excepted against the finest compositions of Mr Handel.

Translations [edit]

to exclude
to take exception, to object to

Preposition [edit]

except

  1. With the exception of; but.
    There was nothing in the cupboard except a tin of beans.

Synonyms [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

with the exception of

Conjunction [edit]

except

  1. With the exception (that); used to introduce a clause, phrase or adverb forming an exception or qualification to something previously stated.
    You look a bit like my sister, except she has longer hair.
    I never made fun of her except teasingly.
  2. (archaic) Unless; used to introduce a hypothetical case in which an exception may exist.
    • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke IX:
      And they sayde: We have no moo but five loves and two fisshes, except we shulde goo and bye meate for all this people.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York 2001, p. 106:
      Offensive wars, except the cause be very just, I will not allow of.

Quotations [edit]

Translations [edit]

with the exception that

Statistics [edit]

Anagrams [edit]

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