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else

[ els ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

adjective

other than the persons or things mentioned or implied:
�� else could I have done?
in addition to the persons or things mentioned or implied:
Who else was there?
other or in addition (used in the possessive following an indefinite pronoun):
someone else's money.

adverb

if not (usually preceded by or ):
It's a macaw, or else I don't know birds.
in some other way; otherwise:
How else could I have acted?
at some other place or time:
Where else might I find this book?

else

/ ɛ�� /

determiner

in addition; more
there is nobody else here
other; different
where else could he be?

adverb

or else
1. if not, then
  go away or else I won't finish my work today
2. or something terrible will result: used as a threat
  sit down, or else!

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Grammar Note

The possessive forms of somebody else, everybody else, etc., are somebody else's, everybody else's, the forms somebody's else, everybody's else being considered nonstandard in present-day English. One exception is the possessive for who else, which is occasionally formed as whose else when a noun does not immediately follow: Is this book yours? Whose else could it be? No, it's somebody else's.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of else¹

before 1000; Middle English, Old English elles (cognate with Old High German elles ), equivalent to ell- other (cognate with Gothic aljis, Latin alius, Old Irish aile Greek á��ǲ�, Armenian ayl other; eldritch ) + -es -s 1

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Word History and Origins

Origin of else¹

Old English elles, genitive of el- strange, foreign; related to Old High German eli- other, Gothic alja, Latin alius, Greek allos

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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

or else, or suffer the consequences:
Do what I say, or else.

More idioms and phrases containing else

see in someone's (else's) shoes ; or else ; something else ; something else again .

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Q: There’s a penalty for not meeting the targets, but no bonuses for meeting them: You meet the goals or else, right?

From

"If someone wants to be a YouTuber I would also think about your other skills, because some of the most popular channels are channels where people are filming themselves doing something else. So think about your skill."

From

And just so if we collect in 100 meter radius from right here, nowhere else, this is all of the biodiversity that will be impacted, and hopefully be able to use that information to argue against the opening of the mine, if it came to that.

From

And you know, he also correctly pointed out that most of these specialists, historically, contemporarily, were coming from somewhere else.

From

"We're just in the interest of finding out who else is here on the spinning ball of juice in the sky, you know, whizzing through the galaxy at millions of miles an hour."

From

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Elsass-Lothringen El Segundo

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