except

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

prep. With the exclusion of; other than; but: everyone except me.

conj. If it were not for the fact that; only. Often used with that: I would buy the suit, except that it costs too much.

conj. Otherwise than: They didn't open their mouths except to complain.

conj. Unless: "And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st/Except it be to pray against thy foes” ( Shakespeare).

transitive v. To leave out; exclude: An admission fee is charged, but children are excepted.

intransitive v. To object: Counsel excepted to the court's ruling.

idiom except for Were it not for: I would join you except for my cold.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

v. To exclude; to specify as being an exception.

v. To take exception, to object (to or against).

prep. With the exception of; but.

conj. With the exception (that); used to introduce a clause, phrase or adverb forming an exception or qualification to something previously stated.

conj. Unless; used to introduce a hypothetical case in which an exception may exist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

conj. Unless; if it be not so that.

prep. With exclusion of; leaving or left out; excepting.

intransitive v. To take exception; to object; -- usually followed by to, sometimes by against.

transitive v. To take or leave out (anything) from a number or a whole as not belonging to it; to exclude; to omit.

transitive v. To object to; to protest against.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

To take or leave out of consideration; exclude from a statement or category, as one or more of a number, or some particular or detail; omit or withhold: as, to except a few from a general condemnation.

To object; take exception: now usually followed by to, but formerly sometimes by against: as, to except to a witness or to his testimony.

Being excepted or left out; with the exception of; excepting: usually equivalent to but, but more emphatic.

Etymologies

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From Latin exceptus. (Wiktionary)

Examples

True it is, that one can scarcely call _that_ education which teaches woman everything except herself, -- _except_ the things that relate to her own peculiar womanly destiny, and, on plea of the holiness of ignorance, sends her without one word of just counsel into the temptations of life.

What we were too dumb to realize was that the guys in Def Leppard hated the term “heavy metal,” and any member of the band would have given his right arm to avoid the label except for Rick Alien, I suppose.