except: [14] If you except something, you literally ‘take it out’. The verb comes from exceptus, the past participle of Latin excipere, a compound formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and capere ‘take’ (source of English capture). The use of the word as a preposition, and subsequently as a conjunction, arose from the adjectival use of the Latin past participle exceptus for ‘excepted, excluded’ (as in modern English ‘present company excepted’). => captive, capture, chase, heave
