except Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb take exception to
    demur.
    • he demurred at my suggestion to work on Saturday
  2. verb prevent from being included or considered or accepted
    take out; omit; leave off; leave out; exclude.
    • The bad results were excluded from the report
    • Leave off the top piece

WordNet


Ex*cept" transitive verb
Etymology
L. exceptus, p. p. of excipere to take or draw out, to except; ex out + capere to take: cf. F. excepter. See Capable.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Excepted; present participle & verbal noun Excepting
Definitions
  1. To take or leave out (anything) from a number or a whole as not belonging to it; to exclude; to omit.
    Who never touched The excepted tree. Milton.
    Wherein (if we only except the unfitness of the judge) all other things concurred. Bp. Stillingfleet.
  2. To object to; to protest against. Obs. Shak.
Ex*cept" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To take exception; to object; -- usually followed by to, sometimes by against; as, to except to a witness or his testimony.
    Except thou wilt except against my love. Shak.
Ex*cept" preposition
Etymology
Originally past participle, or verb in the imperative mode.
Definitions
  1. With exclusion of; leaving or left out; excepting.
    God and his Son except, Created thing naught valued he nor . . . shunned. Milton.
    Syn. -- Except, Excepting, But, Save, Besides. Excepting, except, but, and save are exclusive. Except marks exclusion more pointedly. "I have finished all the letters except one," is more marked than "I have finished all the letters but one." Excepting is the same as except, but less used. Save is chiefly found in poetry. Besides (lit., by the side of) is in the nature of addition. "There is no one here except or but him," means, take him away and there is nobody present. "There is nobody here besides him," means, hi is present and by the side of, or in addition to, him is nobody. "Few ladies, except her Majesty, could have made themselves heard." In this example, besides should be used, not except.
Ex*cept" conjunction
Definitions
  1. Unless; if it be not so that.
    And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. Gen. xxxii. 26.
    But yesterday you never opened lip, Except, indeed, to drink. Tennyson.
    ✍ As a conjunction unless has mostly taken the place of except.

Webster 1913