Unless

How to spell unless

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce unless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unless mean?

1. conjunctionExcept on the condition that; if not.

Unless in a sentence

• The meeting will go ahead unless the room is double-booked.

• We cannot process the refund unless you provide the original receipt.

Where does unless come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Unless looks at first glance like the negative prefix 'un-' attached to 'less', but its real history is a little different. In Middle English it appeared as phrases such as 'on lesse that' or 'onlesse', literally meaning 'on a less condition than' or 'in any case smaller than', where 'on' marked the circumstance and 'less' marked the lesser or excepting condition. Over the 1400s and 1500s the opening 'on' was gradually reshaped into 'un', most likely by association with the familiar negative prefix, giving the modern form 'unless'. The meaning settled into 'except on the condition that', which is exactly how it works in a sentence today. Because the word ends in the single 's' sound but is written with a double 's', and because the start was never truly the negative 'un', writers sometimes hesitate over the spelling.

How the word is built

• un- (here an altered form of older 'on', meaning 'in/on a condition')
• -less (from 'less', a smaller or lesser case)