In English, the words accept and except sound a bit similar in pronunciation, but they are spelled differently. Accept means to agree or to receive something offered. Except means excluding or with the exception of. To accept is to receive, and except is to exclude, usually. However, except can also be a verb meaning “to leave out.”
While accept in basic terms means ‘to agree with’ or ‘to hold certain proposition as true’. But when you talk about except, it means ‘not including’ or ‘other than’. Both are busy little words skipping around to different meanings, but they never run into each other. We use accept mainly as a verb, whereas except is commonly used as a preposition or conjunction. As verbs, accept and except are nearly antonyms, so the difference is important!
Difference Between Accept and Except
ACCEPT
- Accept is an action word, which explains what an individual believes, or takes on.
- Accept is a verb. Accept means to agree or to take something offered.
- Basically, accept means agreeing to or giving approval to something. It is used as a verb to show someone’s consent to an offer or invitation, to consider something as considerable, to believe some statement correct, to admit something.
- The word ‘accept’ simply means ‘give consent to someone or something’, or ‘to receive something’ and so it denotes an action.
- One can use ‘accept’ in a sentence when he/she wants to give an affirmative answer to someone.
- Example: Alex accepted the invitation to the award ceremony. The cricket team accepted the challenge.
EXCEPT
- Except is a conditional word that modifies a sentence, i.e. it restricts the meaning or area of a sentence.
- Except usually functions as a preposition or a conjunction. As a preposition, except means “but.”
- In simple terms, except means ‘other than’ or ‘excluding’, i.e. something which is not included in the given statement. It can be used as different parts of speech in a sentence.
- The word ‘except’ in basic terms means ‘other than’ or ‘apart from’, representing a condition in a sentence.
- When except is used as a preposition in a sentence, it shows the position of a specific thing with respect to another, and when used as a verb, it means exclusion from something.
- Example: Except Alex, no one was interested in going to the award ceremony. Except for the captain, no other member of the team was ready for the challenge.
