without
English
Alternative forms
- withoute (archaic); wythoute, wythowt (obsolete), wythowte (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English withoute, withouten, from Old English wiþūtan (literally “against the outside of”); equivalent to with + out. Compare Dutch buiten (“outside of, without”), Danish uden (“without”), Swedish utan (“without”), Norwegian uten (“without”).
Pronunciation
- (UK, US) IPA(key): /wɪθˈaʊt/, /wɪðˈaʊt/
- (Canada) IPA(key): [wɪθˈɐʊt], [wɪðˈɐʊt]
Audio (US) (file) Audio (CA) (file) - Rhymes: -aʊt
- Hyphenation: with‧out
Adverb
without (not comparable)
- (archaic or literary) Outside, externally. This is still used in the names of some civil parishes in England, e.g. St Cuthbert Without.
- c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- Macbeth: There's blood upon your face
Murderer: 'tis Banquo's then
Macbeth: 'tis better thee without then he within.
- 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 18:
- And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will.
- 1900, Ernest Dowson, Benedictio Domini, lines 13-14
- Strange silence here: without, the sounding street
- Heralds the world's swift passage to the fire
- 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez (Norton 2005, p.1100)
- I knew that someone had entered the house cautiously from without.
- 2016, Liu Cixin, Ken Liu, transl., Death's End, Tor, translation of 死神永生, →ISBN, page 236:
- The feeling seemed to come not from without, but from within each body, as though every person had become a vibrating string.
- 2019 December 8, Supergirl (TV series), season 5, episode 8, "Crisis on Infinite Earths":
- Brainiac: This earthquake is quite literally worldwide.
- Alex Danvers: But the seismic activity [isn't] coming from within the planet, it's coming from without.
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- Lacking something.
- Being from a large, poor family, he learned to live without.
- 2022 September 11, McDonald, Scott, quoting President Volodymyr Zelensky, “Cold, Hunger and Darkness in Ukraine 'Not as Terrible' as Russia: Zelensky”, in Newsweek, archived from the original on 12 September 2022:
- "Read lips: Without gas or without you? Without you. Without light or without you? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you. Without food or without you? Without you.
"Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as terrible and deadly for us as your "friendship and brotherhood."
- (euphemistic) In prostitution: without a condom being worn.
- 2012, Maxim Jakubowski, The Best British Crime Omnibus:
- “What's within reason?” “Hand-job, blow-job, full sex — straight, full service. Greek, maybe, if you're not too big. Golden shower, if you like, but not reverse. No hardsports. And absolutely nothing without.”
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Derived terms
- a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle
- Minehead Without
- St Cuthbert Without
- Wokingham Without
Preposition
without
- (archaic or literary) Outside of, beyond.
- Antonym: within
- 1697, Virgil, “The Seventh Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432:
- Without the gate / Some drive the cars, and some the coursers rein.
- c. 1689, Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth
- Eternity, before the world and after, is without our reach.
- 1835, William Beckford, Italy: With Sketches of Spain and Portugal (volume 1, page 13)
- […] though it was pitch-dark, and we were obliged to be escorted by grooms and groomlings with candles and lanterns; a very necessary precaution, as the winds blew not more violently without the house than within.
- Not having, containing, characteristic of, etc.
- Antonym: with
- It was a mistake to leave my house without a coat.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
- From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.
- 1968 December 8, Henry Cosby; Sylvia Moy; Stevie Wonder (lyrics and music), “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder:
- One day my dreams were surely dying, dying, dying baby
Just like a flower without rain
- One day my dreams were surely dying, dying, dying baby
- 1967, Paul McCartney (writer), The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Life goes on within you and without you.
- 2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55:
- Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema.
- Not doing or not having done something.
- He likes to eat everything without sharing.
- He shot without warning anyone.
- 1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], OCLC 22773434:
- But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.
- 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619, page 16:
- Athelstan Arundel walked home […], foaming and raging. […] He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
Synonyms
- lacking, outwith, with no, -less, w/o, sans, -free
Antonyms
- (outside): within
- (not having): with, having, characteristic of, endowed with
Derived terms
- withoutness
- without trace, without a trace
Translations
not having
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Conjunction
without
- (archaic or dialectal) Unless, except (introducing a clause).
- 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter I, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], OCLC 458431182, page 1:
- You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter.
- 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], OCLC 855945:
- ‘Why,’ he blurted, ‘because they say I've no right to come up like this—without we mean to marry—’
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Anagrams
- outwith