alone
advEtymology From Middle English allone, from earlier all oon (literally “all one”), contracted from the Old English phrase eall ān (“completely alone”), equivalent to al- (“all”) + one. Cognate with Scots alane (“alone”), Saterland Frisian alleene (“alone”), West Frisian allinne (“alone”), Dutch alleen (“alone”), Low German alleen (“alone”), German allein (“alone”), Danish alene (“alone”), Swedish allena (“alone”). More at all and one. For the different phonological development of alone and one, see the note in one.
By oneself; apart from, or exclusive of, others; solo.
- She walked home alone.
Without outside help.
- The job was too hard for me to do alone.
› Focus adverb, typically modifying a noun and…
Not permitting anything further; exclusively.
- The president alone has the power to initiate a nuclear launch.
- They must be told, that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the People alone;1788, James Madison, Federalist No. 46^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(Dawson)/45):
1 more example
- The Senate (A.U.C. 514) decreed that the eldest son alone should bear his father's praenomen.1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xv:
Not requiring anything further; merely.
- Oral antibiotics alone won't clear the infection.
- Except on matters of mere detail, there are perhaps no practical questions, even among those which approach nearest to the character of purely economical questions, which admit of being decided on economical premises alone.1871, John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Principles_of_Political_Economy_(Mill),_vol._1):
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- In writing this tale I had in mind not alone to please my young readers, but also to give them a fair picture of life on the ocean as it is to-day,1903, Arthur M. Winfield, The Rover Boys on Land and Sea:
Broadly Used to emphasize the size or extent of something by selecting a subset.
- Her wardrobe is huge. She has three racks for blazers alone.
- The first sentence alone sold me on the book.
3 more examples
- In the first place, though Lady Burton published comparatively little, she was a voluminous writer, and she left behind her such a mass of letters and manuscripts that the sorting of them alone was a formidable task.1897, The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton:
- “[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result.2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
- Derived terms
- alone in a crowd, forever alone, go it alone, go-it-alone, leave alone, leave me alone, leave well alone, leave well enough alone, let alone, let well alone, let well enough alone, man shall not live by bread alone, misfortunes never come alone, sauce-alone, stand-alone, time alone will tell, walk-alone, walk alone, you get more with a kind word and a gun than you do with a kind word alone