else

1. 1
   otheradjective

   Other than the people or things already mentioned; additional to them.

   Everyone else had already left by the time we arrived.

   What else should we pack for the trip?

   UsageUsed after words like someone, anything and what. The possessive goes on else: someone else's idea (not incorrect: someone's else).

   Similarmore (entry)

   Note

   Shakespeare could still separate the pair in The Tempest ("what thou else shalt do me"), where modern English would keep them together as what else.

2. 2
   adverb

   In a different way, place, or time from the one already mentioned, usually following a question word such as how, where, or when.

   If Thursday is out, when else could the team meet before the deadline?

   Where else have you traveled in Europe?

   Note

   Question words are its usual partners, but the adverb could once sit directly before a description and mean "which would otherwise be." Charles Dickens does this in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844), where ice lies on "the else rippling brook," a brook that would be rippling if it were not frozen. A modern writer would put otherwise in that slot. With how, when and where, else still does its everyday work: how else, when else, where else. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Charles Dickens wrote Martin Chuzzlewit. gutenberg.org
   • Dickens uses ‘the else rippling brook’ for a brook covered by ice, illustrating else before a participle with the meaning ‘otherwise’. This is narration, not a character’s speech. gutenberg.org
3. 3
   otherwiseconjunction

   Otherwise; used to introduce what would happen or be true if the preceding statement were false or instruction ignored.

   Be sure to water the plants, else they will wither by Sunday.

   She must have known the answer already, else she would never have raised her hand so fast.

   UsageUsually after a comma; or else and otherwise can take its place: hurry, or else we'll be late.

   Note

   The clause-joining use suits argument as well as warning. After a firm claim it reasons back from the alternative, as Jack London does in The Call of the Wild (1903): the lesson came secondhand, "else he would not have lived to profit by it."

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