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
-
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)
-
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
-
are excludingprogressive
-
is excludingprogressive
-
have been excludingperfect progressive
-
has been excludingperfect progressive
Past
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excludedsimple
-
had excludedperfect
-
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:
Unless iPhone users exclude themselves from the settlement class, they won’t be able to sue Apple or join any lawsuit against the company based on the claims in the case.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Core prices, which exclude food and energy prices, increased 0.3% on the month, slightly more than expected.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
He added: "We cannot exclude that the escalation will also affect our territory... I hope not."
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
A decade ago, pharmaceutical roll-ups like Valeant convinced analysts to exclude amortization from their alternative earnings metrics, even on newly bought drug patents near expiration.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
The prices exclude the city’s own teachers and firemen.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
According to the report, adjusted operating income excludes stock-based compensation, which is not unusual for technology companies.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026
The core inflation metric excludes food and energy prices.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026
Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 3.4% on year in August and 0.2% on month.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
Statistics Canada’s wholesale measure excludes petroleum and oilseed and grain sales.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
It thus systematically excludes from consideration the very feature which makes scientific arguments distinctive: their appeal to superior evidence.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
I know the experiences of deaf women being excluded, being deprived of communication, being deprived of help, being deprived of access, being deprived of so many things.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
To keep the results relevant, they excluded pharma and biotech where drug approval headlines can have extreme results.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Contrary to police claims, the DNA was not a conclusive match for Oxford and Walters; it indicated only that they could not be excluded as possible contributors.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
There is also the matter of the excluded athletes and events.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
He was too loyal to anything connected with himself—his roommate, his dormitory, his class, his school, outward in vastly expanded circles of loyalty until I couldn’t imagine who would be excluded.
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
Official data shows police forces across England and Wales, excluding the British Transport Police, recorded 502,011 shoplifting offences in 2025-26 alone.
From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2026
Amodei has expressed a willingness to coordinate with rivals, excluding China.
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
Consumer prices excluding volatile fresh food are expected to have risen 1.8% from a year earlier, matching July’s pace, according to a poll by data provider Quick.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
This year her department has a slate of 44 new and returning scripted series from the U.S. and Canada, excluding stand-up, comedy formats and adult animation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 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.
