Meaning of alone in English

alone

adjective [ after verb ], adverb

/əˈləʊn/ us

/əˈloʊn/

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without other people:

He likes being alone in the house.

She decided to climb the mountain alone.

Do you like living alone?

At last, we're alone together (= there are just the two of us here).

The Swedes are not alone in finding their language under pressure from the spread of English.

I don't like the man and I'm not alone in that (= other people agree).

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

not with others

aloneYou can tell me your secret - I think we're alone.
(all) on your ownI like living on my own.
on your lonesomeUK Sure, you can play the game on your lonesome, but it's more fun with friends.
on your todUK Ah, your family's gone and left you on your tod, have they?
unaccompaniedTo everyone's great surprise, she arrived at the ball unaccompanied.
solitaryHe was a solitary child who preferred reading a book to football.

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More examplesFewer examples

It's inexcusable that such young children were left in the house alone.
Go away and leave me alone!
I got the impression that they'd rather be alone.
It appears that she left the party alone.
You're mad to walk home alone at this time of night.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Alone

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Grammar

Alone, lonely, or lonesome?

Alone is an adjective and an adverb meaning that no other person is with you. When we use alone as an adjective, it never comes before the noun (predicative adjective): …

Alone or lonely?

Alone is an adjective and an adverb meaning that no other person is with you. When we use alone as an adjective, it never comes before the noun (predicative adjective): …

Lonesome

In American English, lonesome means the same as lonely: …

alone

adjective [ after noun ]

/əˈləʊn/ us

/əˈloʊn/

without any others:

She alone needs to decide what to do (= no one else can do it for her).

These facts alone (= even if nothing else is considered) show that he's not to be trusted.

He won't get the job through charm alone (= he will need something else).

The airfare alone would use up all my money, never mind the hotel bills.

Price alone is not a reliable indicator of quality.

More examplesFewer examples

Words alone cannot convey the untold misery endured by people in these refugee camps.
He truly believes he can cure himself by willpower alone.
Is it more democratic to hold a referendum, rather than let the government alone decide?
These problems might not be solved by money alone, but they will assuredly not be solved without it.
This year alone eight police officers have been killed in the line of duty.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Numbers: single, double & multiple

See more results »

Grammar

Alone, lonely, or lonesome?

Alone is an adjective and an adverb meaning that no other person is with you. When we use alone as an adjective, it never comes before the noun (predicative adjective): …

Alone or lonely?

Alone is an adjective and an adverb meaning that no other person is with you. When we use alone as an adjective, it never comes before the noun (predicative adjective): …

Lonesome

In American English, lonesome means the same as lonely: …

(Definition of alone from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

alone | American Dictionary

alone

adjective, adverb

/əˈloʊn/

alone adjective, adverb (WITHOUT PEOPLE)

Add to word list Add to word list

without other people:

She decided to climb the mountain alone.

We can discuss your proposal when we’re alone (= when other people present have left).

alone

adjective [ not gradable ]

/əˈloʊn/

alone adjective [not gradable] (ONLY)

without any others, or only:

I based my decision on her recommendation alone.

(Definition of alone from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of alone

alone

Too often the client in a psychiatric hospital is left to die or grieve emotionally and spiritually alone.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Structure-based identification of homologues often succeeds where sequence-alone-based methods fail, because in many cases evolution retains the folding pattern long after sequence similarity becomes undetectable.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In this paper, we have shown that the phonological phrasing of a sentence is not straightforwardly predictable from the syntactic structure alone.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The stems in (12b) contain no nasal segmental material - these form the inchoative verb with [re-] alone.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Four of the participants lived alone and three did not have easy access to a car.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The effect of parasitic infection alone was examined using mosquitoes of the same age.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

At a significance level of 0.05, 1 in 20 test results would be positive by chance alone.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

First, because the story is not presented simply and directly, as it might be in a performance for children alone.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Thus, the offstage sounds alone will have the ability to signal a jump in time (or space or both).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

He sings of his sleeping 'alone in my attic' in easy harmony with the two lovers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The topic sheet was given to the par ticipants right before the recording and then the pair of participants was left alone in the room.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In (o), the item in question is alone in the paradigm or not.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

One may be frightened by an animal while walking alone through the forest, away from one's home.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

They repeated these words in their next turns, alone or embedded in a larger utterance, 54% of the time.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Following this second set of tellings, interviewers left me alone with the interviewee.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of alone?

Translations of alone

in Chinese (Traditional)

單獨（的），獨自（的）, 孤獨的（地），無伴的（地）, 唯一，僅僅，只有…

Meaning of alone in English

Grammar

Grammar

alone | American Dictionary

alone adjective, adverb (WITHOUT PEOPLE)

alone adjective [not gradable] (ONLY)

Examples of alone

Translations of alone

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