Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

unless

UK/ənˈlɛs/US/ɪnˈlɛs/
prepositionA2One of the most common words in English · #366 of 15,258leans spoken

Unless means except if the thing named happens. Unless it rains, unless you object, not unless.

It introduces the one condition that would change the outcome, which is why it is stronger than if not — unless you tell me means the telling is the only thing that would alter anything. It takes the present tense for future meaning: unless it rains tomorrow. Note that unless comes from on less, meaning on no lesser condition, with the on later reshaped to un-.

Definitions of unless

  1. 1prepositionunlessExcept if the thing named happens.A2

    “We'll eat outside unless it starts to rain.”

unless is a conditional word.

Where it comes from

Middle English on lesse meant on no less a condition than. The negative feel of the phrase pulled the unstressed on into un-, which is a rare kind of reshaping.

  1. Middle English

    unlesse

  2. English, today

    unless

From of + on + upon + in + un- + less. From Middle English unlesse, earlier on lesse (modern on + less), from (not) on lesse (than) (“(not) on a less compelling condition (than)”). The quality of negation in the word and the lack of stress changed on to un-.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

unless in the wild

  • Elastase - cuts after Ala, Gly, Ser, or Val, unless followed by Pro.

    Endopeptidase

  • Rule XXXI mandates that all nominations be considered in open session unless the Senate votes to do so in secret.

    Closed sessions of the United States Senate

  • The proceedings of a secret session are not published unless the Senate votes, during the meeting or at a later time, to release them.

    Closed sessions of the United States Senate

  • Total area is taken from the United Nations Statistics Division unless otherwise noted.

    List of countries and dependencies by area

  • Land and water are taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization unless otherwise noted.

    List of countries and dependencies by area

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.