Word.ws English Dictionary

sans

/sænz/

sans preposition: without; lacking; especially with regard to something expected or with precedent. Also the ellipsis of sans serif.

Preposition

sans

  1. (defective, humorous, literary, often) Without; lacking; especially with regard to something expected or with precedent.
    • Bero[wne]. […] And to begin Wench, ſo God helpe me law,
      My loue to thee is ſound, ſance cracke or flaw.
      Roſa[line]. Sans, ſans, I pray you.c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby...
    • Those with brooms started to sweep literally, at the feet of the crowd, driving it back into the side streets from which it had emerged to form this assembly – now riders sans steeds.1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Qutet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 766
    Synonyms:
    minus, without

Noun (1) capitalized: SANs

SANs

  1. (plural) plural of SAN

Noun (2) capitalized: SAns

SAns

  1. (plural) plural of SAn

Also used as

sans is also the ellipsis of sans serif.

sans is also the plural of san.

Examples of sans in a sentence

  • By September, Jake felt that he'd mastered the art of partying sans booze—and he loved it.
  • Alone at home, sans pants, but connected to nearest and dearest via group video chat.
  • These peanut butters can be made, in seconds, right before your eyes, sans additives.

All 17 example sentences with sans

Synonyms of sans

Origin of sans

From Middle English saunz, sans, borrowed from Old French sans, senz, sens, from Latin sine (“without”) conflated with absēns (“absent, remote”). Compare French sans, Italian senza, Portuguese sem, and Spanish sin.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Phrases with sans

Words that rhyme with sans

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sans

What does sans mean?
Sans means without; lacking; especially with regard to something expected or with precedent.
What part of speech is sans?
Sans can be a preposition or a noun.
How do you pronounce sans?
Sans is pronounced /sænz/ (UK).

Words near sans in the dictionary

  1. Sanquhar
  2. sanquinarine
  3. Sanremo
  4. Sanroman
  5. Sanromans
  6. sans
  7. sans doute
  8. sans gêne
  9. sans nombre
  10. sans rival
  11. sans rivals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sans (page history and authors); SANs (page history and authors); SAns (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-sans.ogg, En-uk-sans.ogg, en-au-sans.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sans.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sans. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.