The Difference Between Accept and Except

Accept Vs. Except

When two words sound alike but have different meanings, it can be tricky to remember which is which. Break and brake sound the same but mean totally different things for cyclists and car owners. Another set of words like this are accept and except; sounding the word out won’t help you determine which is the correct one to use in your writing. Read on to learn the difference between accept and except.

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The Definition of Accept

The verb accept is incredibly versatile but is most frequently used to mean “to receive something willingly.”

You can accept a date, a drink, or a bribe. A secret society can accept new members. Parishioners accept the beliefs of their church and a judge might accept an attorney’s argument. Voters can accept a politician’s agenda or reject it in favor of another. A scientist’s experiment was a success and her colleagues accepted her theory. You can tolerate something you’re not overly fond of and learn to accept your new roommate’s quirky behavior of late-night tuba playing. If you’re paying a bill for someone else, you’re accepting that charge as your own.

In all these cases, accept is used to convey a positive receipt, an admission, or a favorable reaction or consideration.

The Definition of Except

Except is a preposition that means “unless” or “excluding.” It can also be used as a verb to indicate when someone or thing is prevented from being accepted, considered, or included.

If the only day you don’t go to the gym is Sunday, you might say that you go every day except Sunday. But if the gym serves free donuts on the weekends, you might say that you normally skip Sundays, except when there are baked goods. (You might also want to look into a new gym if they’re handing out donuts.)

The word except can also be used as a conjunction to indicate a specific exception. For example, you’d never turn in a term paper late, except when your professor gives you an extension. And you normally wake up early, except that you had too much coffee yesterday afternoon and it messed up your sleep.

In nearly all instances, you use except to indicate an exclusion or an exception.

Using Accept vs. Except

Confusing these two words is a common grammatical error. If you’re having a hard time with which word to use, a helpful way to think about using accept vs. except is to remember that accept generally has positive connotations. Conversely, except is used for exceptions and exclusions. Acceptance is taking something on and exceptions mean leaving something off or singling something out.

An even simpler way to determine whether you should use accept or except in a sentence is that the first two letters of except are also the first two letters of exclude. If you’re leaving something out, choose “except.” If you’re bringing something in, choose “accept.”

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