Except, prep.
Etymology: [Originally past participle, or verb in the imperative mode.]
With exclusion of; leaving or left out; excepting. God and his Son except, Created thing naught valued he nor . . . shunned. Milton.
Syn. -- Except, Excepting, But, Save, Besides. Excepting, except, but, and save are exclusive. Except marks exclusion more pointedly. "I have finished all the letters except one," is more marked than "I have finished all the letters but one." Excepting is the same as except, but less used. Save is chiefly found in poetry. Besides (lit., by the side of) is in the nature of addition. "There is no one here except or but him," means, take him away and there is nobody present. "There is nobody here besides him," means, hi is present and by the side of, or in addition to, him is nobody. "Few ladies, except her Majesty, could have made themselves heard." In this example, besides should be used, not except.
3 other Webster entries under this spelling
Except, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Excepted; p. pr. & vb. n. Excepting.]
1. To take or leave out (anything) from a number or a whole as not belonging to it; to exclude; to omit. Who never touched The excepted tree. Milton. Wherein (if we only except the unfitness of the judge) all other things concurred. Bp. Stillingfleet.
2. To object to; to protest against. [Obs.] Shak.
Except, v. i.
To take exception; to object; -- usually followed by to, sometimes by against; as, to except to a witness or his testimony. Except thou wilt except against my love. Shak.
Except, conj.
Unless; if it be not so that. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. Gen. xxxii. 26. But yesterday you never opened lip, Except, indeed, to drink. Tennyson.
Note: As a conjunction unless has mostly taken the place of except.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for except; he lists it under but.
Where he writes about it:
In restrictive use, except and excepting are slightly more emphatic than but; we say, no injury but a scratch; or, no injury except some painful bruises. — from but
So may the use of but in the sense of unless; as, "it never rains but it pours." To the same head must be referred the conditional use; as, "you may go, but with your father's consent" (i. e., "provided you have," "except that you must have," etc.). — from but