Exception that proves the rule

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The exception proves the rule" is a frequently misused English idiom.

Its most common use is as a flippant dismissal of counterexamples to an overly broad assertion ("Bob is always late." "That's not true. He was on time yesterday." "Well, the exception proves the rule."), and it is sometimes claimed the word "prove" means "test" in this context, as it does in "proving ground" or "proofreader", but its original meaning is roughly "if an exception exists, there must be a rule the exception applies to".

For example, a sign that says "parking prohibited on Sundays" (the exception) implies that parking is allowed on the other six days of the week (the rule).

The phrase is derived from the medieval Latin legal principle exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis ("the exception confirms the rule in the cases not excepted").

[edit] External links

• Pertinent entry of the alt.english.usage FAQ
• World Wide Words
• The Phrase Finder
• The Straight Dope

---

This page has been transwikied to Wiktionary. Because this article has content useful to Wikipedia's sister project Wiktionary, it has been copied to there, and its dictionary counterpart can be found at either Wiktionary:Transwiki:Exception that proves the rule or Wiktionary:Exception that proves the rule. It should no longer appear in Category:Copy to Wiktionary and should not be re-added there. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and if this article cannot be expanded beyond a dictionary definition, it should be tagged for deletion. If it can be expanded into an article, please do so and remove this template. Note that {{vocab-stub}} is deprecated. If {{vocab-stub}} was removed when this article was transwikied, and the article is deemed encyclopedic, there should be a more suitable category for it.