alone

Etymology

From Middle English allone, from earlier all oon (“alone”, literally “all one”), contracted from the Old English phrase eall ān (“completely alone”), equivalent to al- (“all”) + one. Cognate with Scots alane (“alone”), Saterland Frisian alleene (“alone”), West Frisian allinne (“alone”), Dutch alleen (“alone”), Low German alleen (“alone”), German allein (“alone”), Danish alene (“alone”), Swedish allena (“alone”). More at all and one. Regarding the different phonological development of alone and one, see the note in one.

adj

1. By oneself, solitary.
   I can't ask for help because I am alone.
   Alone on a wide, wide sea. 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
2. (predicatively, chiefly in the negative) Lacking peers who share one's beliefs, experiences, practices, etc.
   Senator Craddock wants to abolish the estate tax, and she's not alone.
   I always organize my Halloween candy before eating it. Am I alone in this?
   Hungary's leader is not alone in eastern and southern Europe, where democratically elected populist strongmen increasingly dominate, deploying the power of the state and a battery of instruments of intimidation to crush dissent, demonise opposition, tame the media and tailor the system to their ends. 2013-08-23, Ian Traynor, “Rise of Europe's new autocrats”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 11, page 1
   If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by it all, you’re not alone. 2021-09-08, Ekua Hagan, “5 Ways to Restore Our Hope”, in Psychology Today
3. (obsolete) Apart from, or exclusive of, others.
4. (obsolete) Mere; consisting of nothing further.
   and therefore all Killing, Banishing, Fining, Imprisoning, and other such things, which Men are afflicted with, for the alone exercise of their Conscience, or difference in Worship or Opinion, proceedeth from the spirit of Cain, the Murderer, and is contrary to the Truth; 1676, Robert Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity[…]
5. (obsolete) Unique; rare; matchless.
   Pardon me, Proteus, all I can is nothing / To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing; / She is alone. c. 1589–1593, William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2, scene 4, lines 163–165

adv

1. By oneself; apart from, or exclusive of, others; solo.
   She walked home alone.
2. Without outside help.
   The job was too hard for me to do alone.
3. Focus adverb, typically modifying a noun and occurring immediately after it.
   1. Not permitting anything further; exclusively.
      The president alone has the power to initiate a nuclear launch.
      They must be told, that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the People alone; 1788, James Madison, Federalist No. 46/45)
   2. Not requiring anything further; merely.
      Oral antibiotics alone won't clear the infection.
      Except on matters of mere detail, there are perhaps no practical questions, even among those which approach nearest to the character of purely economical questions, which admit of being decided on economical premises alone. 1871, John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy,_vol._1)
      In writing this tale I had in mind not alone to please my young readers, but also to give them a fair picture of life on the ocean as it is to-day, 1903, Arthur M. Winfield, The Rover Boys on Land and Sea
   3. (by extension) Used to emphasize the size or extent of something by selecting a subset.
      Her wardrobe is huge. She has three racks for blazers alone.
      The first sentence alone sold me on the book.
      In the first place, though Lady Burton published comparatively little, she was a voluminous writer, and she left behind her such a mass of letters and manuscripts that the sorting of them alone was a formidable task. 1897, The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton
      In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. 2013-05-25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74