Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use except in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, preposition, conjunction

Except means to exclude; to specify as being an exception. Example: “I find most people annoying — present company excepted, of course!”

Examples of except by meaning

verbTo exclude; to specify as being an exception.

  • I find most people annoying — present company excepted, of course!

verbTo take exception, to object (to or against).

  • to except to a witness or his testimony

prepositionUsed to introduce an exception or qualification to something previously stated.

  • There was nothing in the cupboard except a tin of beans.
  • Except that he is wearing polka-dot drawers, he is buck naked.1983, Paul T. Rogers, Saul's Book
  • Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891

conjunctionUsed to introduce a clause, phrase, verb infinitive, adverb or other non-noun complement forming an exception or...

  • You look a bit like my sister, except (that) she has longer hair.
  • I never made fun of her except teasingly.
  • To survive, I did everything except steal.

conjunctionLoosely, used to introduce a contrastive statement explaining why something wasn't successful, didn't happen, etc.

  • They fired tear gas at us, except the wind was blowing the wrong way.
  • I almost walked out, except I remembered the promise I had made.

More sentences with except

  • We were not left go to the beach after school except on a weekend.From the entry left
  • Those election results are a quagmire for any coalition except one of national union.From the entry quagmire
  • His life of the founder is finished, except for the title.From the entry life
  • Build your pyramid with all cards face down, except the cards in the bottom row.From the entry pyramid
  • Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey.From the entry monkey
  • Except for one or two days a year, he usually walks to work.From the entry usually
  • It was an easy trip except for the last stretch, which took forever.From the entry stretch
  • The diplomats were advised not to interact with any foreign nationals except on official duty.From the entry national
  • The software is pretty good, except for a few cases where its behavior diverges from user expectations.From the entry diverge
  • The student body consisted primarily of boarders, except for a few children belonging to the school staff.From the entry boarder
  • The apartment is parqueted throughout except for the kitchen and bathroom.From the entry throughout
  • So far there are no differences among the protiums extracted at various labs, except for concentration levels.From the entry protium
  • My car is a sanctuary, where none can disturb me except for people who cut me off.From the entry sanctuary
  • His littleness didn't bother him, except when he needed to get something off the top shelf.From the entry littleness
  • His smallness didn't bother him, except when he needed something off the top shelf.From the entry smallness
  • The software is self-contained, and doesn't interface with anything except the user.From the entry self-contained
  • Cleaning this equipment really isn't hard except that getting into all the nooks and crannies is time-consuming.From the entry nook and cranny
  • In modern China, Sunday is not usually a schoolday except around major holidays.From the entry schoolday
  • Each carbon of the ring has one hydrogen attached except for the fourth one, which is bonded to a substituent.From the entry hydrogen
  • String theory is way cool, except for the math.From the entry way
  • My new car is quite similar to my old one, except it has a bit more space in the back.From the entry similar
  • We're done drafting our paper except for the final check to see whether any verbiage can be reduced.From the entry verbiage
  • We're done drafting our paper except for the final verbiage on fire safety, which will be supplied by the safety engineers.From the entry verbiage
  • Fred was disappointed to find his pigeonhole empty except for bills and a flyer offering 20% off on manicures.From the entry pigeonhole
  • Our ideas coincide, except in certain areas.From the entry coincide
  • Nothing was to be sacrosanct or sacred, excepting reason itself.From the entry excepting
  • We've all done it, not excepting Borja.From the entry excepting
  • This drug cannot be used therapeutically except as a placebo.From the entry therapeutically
  • Then all the enemies drew back daunted, except for the fellest of the warriors, who stepped forward to accept the challenge.From the entry fellest
  • An orthotactic rule of thumb that nearly any English-speaking schoolchild has heard is to put 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'.From the entry orthotactic

Meaning of except

  1. verb To exclude; to specify as being an exception.
  2. verb To take exception, to object (to or against).
  3. preposition Used to introduce an exception or qualification to something previously stated.

Full definition of except

Questions about except in a sentence

How do you use except in a sentence?
Except is used as a verb, preposition and conjunction. For example: “I find most people annoying — present company excepted, of course!”
What is a short sentence with except?
“Our ideas coincide, except in certain areas.”
What does except mean?
Except means to exclude; to specify as being an exception.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: except (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use except in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/except. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.