Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or practice of excluding.
  • noun The condition or fact of being excluded.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of excluding or shutting out; a debarring; non-admission.
  • noun Non-inclusion or non-reception; exception.
  • noun In logic, the relation of two terms each of which is totally denied of the other. Thus, animal and plant stand to each other in a relation of exclusion, provided it is true that no animal is a plant.
  • noun The act of thrusting out or expelling; ejection; extrusion.
  • noun That which is emitted or thrown out; excretion.
  • noun A method in the theory of numbers invented by Frenicle de Bessy, and now forgotten.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of excluding, or of shutting out, whether by thrusting out or by preventing admission; a debarring; rejection; prohibition; the state of being excluded.
  • noun (Physiol.) The act of expelling or ejecting a fetus or an egg from the womb.
  • noun Thing emitted.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a deliberate act of omission
  • noun the state of being excommunicated
  • noun the state of being excluded
  • noun the act of forcing out someone or something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English exclusioun, from Latin exclūsiō, exclūsiōn-, from exclūsus, past participle of exclūdere, to shut; see exclude.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin exclusionem, from excludere.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "In the report, The Exclusion From School of Children Aged Four To Seven, Ofsted said most children 'responded well to the school's expectations', but a few found this difficult. Bad behaviour included biting other children, persistent refusal to follow instructions, swearing, running away from staff or kicking or hitting them, climbing over the school fence and throwing chairs."

    - Schools 'need not expel under-7s', bbc.co.uk, 23 June 2009.

    June 24, 2009

  • is 'expel' now politically incorrect, or is 'exclude' a British thing?

    June 24, 2009

  • That was my feeling exactly ... exclusion is such a sanitised word to use in this context.

    June 24, 2009

  • it's so much creepier than 'expulsion' in this case. the long use of 'expel' within the school system has dulled its punch, whereas exclusion reads like a deliberate emotional decision to ostracize (we musn't exclude people; that's just mean); definitely not a mere punishment.

    June 24, 2009