Etymologically
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without

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /wɪˈðaʊt/ (UK); /wɪˈðaʊt/, /-ˈθaʊt/ (US)[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English withouten, withoute,[3][4] inherited from Old English wiþūtan (“outside of, from outside”),[3][5] formed from Old English wiþ (“against, with”) + ūtan (“from outside”) (see with and out), literally “against the outside”, as the opposite of within.[3][6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Outside, on the outside of (Old English wiþūtan, as a preposition c. 893 in the OED).[8][3]

Semantic evolution

The sense “lacking, not having”, the opposite of with, is attested from about 1200,[3][9][10] and “in the absence of (a person)” from the late 14th century.[9] By the late 14th century it was also a conjunction, short for without that,[3] and in the sense “unless” it is now dialectal, as in Mark Twain's “you don't know about me without you have read a book”.[11][7] The original senses “outside, outdoors” are now literary or archaic,[8][12] but survive in the names of English civil parishes such as St Cuthbert Without.[2][5] A noun, “an outer place”, as in from without, dates from the 15th century.[11][7] Colloquially without alone has meant “lacking money, poor” since the 1920s.[9]

Timeline

  • c. 893 – Old English wiþūtan, outside of.[8]
  • c. 1200 – lacking, not having.[3]
  • late 14th century – conjunction, unless.[3][11]
  • 15th century – noun, an outer place.[11]
  • 1922 – lacking money, poor (colloquial).[9]

Modern meaning

Preposition

  1. Not having; lacking: a family without a car.
  2. Not accompanied by; in the absence of: he came without his wife.
  3. Not doing the action mentioned: spoke without thinking.
  4. (archaic or literary) Outside of: without the city gates.

Adverb

  1. (archaic or literary) On the outside; outdoors.
  2. Lacking something: had to do without.

Conjunction

  1. (dialect) Unless.

Noun

  1. An outer place: from without.

Word family

  • withoutdoors
  • absent without leave
  • minister without portfolio

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press