but that

English

Conjunction

but that

  1. (archaic, poetic) Except that.
    • 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year‎[1]:
      After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that he, his wife, and his children were to be locked up with this poor distempered servant […]
  2. (archaic, literary) Were it not that.
    • 1628, John Earle, Microcosmography‎[2]:
      He would be wholly a Christian, but that he is something of an atheist, and wholly an atheist, but that he is partly a Christian; and a perfect heretic, but that there are so many to distract him.
  3. (archaic, poetic) So that.
    • 1611, “John 3:17”, in The Holy Bible, King James Version‎[3]:
      For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe‎[4]:
      Here I found that the ship was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her hold, but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or, rather earth, that her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost to the water.
  4. (literary, poetic) Following not so, an elaboration of that.
    • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel‎[5]:
      […] the present is not so glorious but that I should not wish to dwell a little in the past.
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