What does "except" mean?

To exclude; to specify as being an exception.

What is a synonym for "except"?

Common synonyms include: apart from, bar, but, except for, excepting, exclude.

//ɪkˈsɛpt// conj, prep, verb, slang

conj, prep, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Verb

1
To exclude; to specify as being an exception. transitive
"I find most people annoying — present company excepted, of course!"
2
prevent from being included or considered or accepted wordnet
3
To take exception, to object (to or against). intransitive
"to except to a witness or his testimony"
4
object to wordnet

Preposition

1
Used to introduce an exception or qualification to something previously stated.
"There was nothing in the cupboard except a tin of beans."

Conjunction

1
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."
2
Loosely, used to introduce a contrastive statement explaining why something wasn't successful, didn't happen, etc. informal
"They fired tear gas at us, except the wind was blowing the wrong way."
3
Unless; used to introduce a hypothetical case in which an exception may exist. archaic
"And they sayde: We have no moo but five loves and two fisshes, except we shulde goo and bye meate for all this people."

"Except that here, it's not so simple."

Borrowed from Middle French excepter, from Latin exceptus.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.