Exclude

How to spell exclude

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce exclude

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exclude mean?

1. verbTo deliberately leave someone or something out, or to prevent them from being part of a group, place, or process.

Exclude in a sentence

• The new policy will exclude part-time staff from the bonus scheme.

• Please exclude the weekend hours when you total the invoice.

Where does exclude come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes directly from the Latin verb excludere, which meant 'to shut out' or 'to keep out'. It was built from the prefix ex-, meaning 'out', joined to claudere, the verb 'to close' or 'to shut'. English adopted it in the fifteenth century, keeping the literal idea of shutting someone or something on the outside of a door. The same claudere root, with its sense of closing, also gave us a whole family of related English words such as 'include' (to shut in), 'conclude' (to shut together, to finish), 'seclude', and even 'close' itself. Knowing that the spelling ends in -clude, not -clood, is the easiest way to remember it, since the 'clude' family always keeps that Latin shape.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• -clude (from Latin claudere: to close, to shut)