exclude
Americanverb (used with object)
-
excludes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
excluded,
past participle, past
-
excluding
present participle
-
to shut or keep out; prevent the entrance of.
- Antonyms:
- include
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to shut out from consideration, privilege, etc..
Employees and their relatives were excluded from participation in the contest.
-
to expel and keep out; thrust out; eject.
He was excluded from the club for infractions of the rules.
- Synonyms:
- reject
verb
-
to keep out; prevent from entering
-
to reject or not consider; leave out
-
to expel forcibly; eject
-
to debar from school, either temporarily or permanently, as a form of punishment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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excludernoun
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preexcludeverb (used with object)
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excludableadjective
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exclusoryadjective
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unexcludedadjective
-
unexcludingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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excludesimple
-
excludessimple
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have excludedperfect
-
has excludedperfect
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am excludingprogressive
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are excludingprogressive
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is excludingprogressive
-
have been excludingperfect progressive
-
has been excludingperfect progressive
Past
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excludedsimple
-
had excludedperfect
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was excludingprogressive
-
were excludingprogressive
-
had been excludingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of exclude
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Latin exclūdere “to shut out, cut off,” from ex- ex- 1 + -clūdere, combining form of claudere “to shut, close”
Compare meaning
How does exclude compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Exclude means to leave out — like when the cool kids won't let you in on their game of four-square or the pizza guy leaves your neighborhood out from his delivery zone. Exclude comes to us from the Latin word excludere, which means "to shut." So essentially, when you exclude someone you slam the door in their face one way or another: You won't let them into the party, you leave them off the invite list, or refuse to include them in the conversation once they arrive. Needless to say, excluding others is not very nice.
Vocabulary lists containing exclude
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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UCPS 6th Grade Roots List #1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The advantage of looking at profit margins is that they exclude some of the one-time events that distort bottom-line numbers, such as goodwill write-downs or restructuring charges.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026
He added that "further pedestrianisation" of the city centre "without significant mitigation will exclude many of us from our city".
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
On Monday, the government announced revised plans that would exclude prisoners who had committed rape, grooming, and serious child sex offences from an early release scheme for England and Wales.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
Artists can buy insurance to cover missed dates, but some deem it too expensive, and policies may exclude the health condition causing them trouble—or the insurance company might fight the claim.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
A British lawyer pointed out that it was “ridiculous to call it a World Convention and then exclude half the world.”
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
The California tax incentive excludes above-the-line costs and has a per-project cap, whereas New Jersey’s incentive includes above-the-line costs and doesn’t have a per-project cap.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
If you’re above the median, you’re being compared against a group that excludes tens of millions of households with zero saved.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
Core retail sales, which excludes the auto component and gasoline, climbed 0.9%, retracing a 0.7% decline in the category recorded in April.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
"Net bookings", the company's preferred revenue yardstick which excludes some deferred sales, was down slightly less in April-June, falling nine percent to 256 million euros.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
The clay hypothesis hardly excludes life on Mars, but it certainly carries us far enough to say that there is no compelling evidence for microbiology on Mars.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Frequently, when states pass laws barring transgender athletes from competition, the result can feel overwhelmingly personal to those affected, since the number of people excluded in a given state can be counted on your fingers.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
“Crypto in A7’s operations functions as a channel for actors who have been excluded from conventional banking—and have few alternatives,” TRM Labs, a U.S.-based blockchain analytics firm, said in a report in June.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
Your brother’s primary residence and one vehicle would be excluded when determining resource eligibility.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
The bloc has excluded Myanmar's leadership from high-level summits since the putsch, but its foreign minister attended an informal meeting with his regional counterparts last month in Bangkok.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
“I mean, Mr. Jackson didn’t say we were excluded because we made mistakes. She kept us out on purpose. Because she doesn’t like that we’re loud and not ‘traditional’ or ‘family friendly.’
From "The First Rule of Punk" by Celia C. Pérez
But the PKK leadership has said excluding Ocalan from the legislation would be a red line, warning on Sunday that many of the bill's provisions would remain a "dead letter" if he were not freed.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
Further research could help clarify the ecological pressures that favored some body sizes while effectively excluding others.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
Platforms revenue increased less than 1%, and was up 9% excluding SportsEngine.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Earnings per share, excluding certain items, were $2.06, a 28% improvement from $1.61 a year ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
On January 24, 2008, Bunderson filed a motion to prohibit the prosecution from introducing diagrams of the crash site, excluding any diagram “prepared by Mr. Kaiserman, the only eyewitness.”
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
