Definition of "without"
without
adverb
not comparable
(archaic or literary) Outside, externally. This is still used in the names of some civil parishes in England, e.g. St Cuthbert Without.
Quotations
Macbeth: There's blood upon your faceMurderer: 'tis Banquo's thenMacbeth: 'tis better thee without then he within.
c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will.
1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 18
Quotations
"Read lips: Without gas or without you? Without you. Without light or without you? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you. Without food or without you? Without you."Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as terrible and deadly for us as your "friendship and brotherhood."
2022 September 11, Scott McDonald, quoting President Volodymyr Zelensky, “Cold, Hunger and Darkness in Ukraine 'Not as Terrible' as Russia: Zelensky”, in Newsweek, archived from the original on 12 September 2022
preposition
(archaic or literary) Outside of, beyond.
Quotations
From thence we came without the Eaſtern gate, (ſtanding on a low Banke, called the daughter of Syon, that over-toppeth the valley of Iehoſaphat,) unto an immoveable ſtone, upon the which they ſaid St. Stephen was ſtoned to death, the firſt Martyr of the Chriſtian faith; and the faithfull fore-runner of many noble followers.
1640, William Lithgow, “The Sixt Part”, in The Totall Diſcourſe, Of the rare Adventures, and painefull Peregrinations of long nineteene yeares Travailes from Scotland, to the moſt famous Kingdomes in Europe, Aſia, and Affrica […], London: I. Okes, page 249
Not having, containing, characteristic of, etc.
Quotations
From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Not doing or not having done something.
Quotations
But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.
1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […]
Athelstan Arundel walked home […], foaming and raging. […] He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 16
conjunction
(archaic or dialectal) Unless, except (introducing a clause).
Quotations
You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter.
1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter I, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], page 1