Excepter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who sets something apart by leaving it out of a general rule or statement
2. Someone who names a particular item as exempt from what is otherwise being said or required
3. One who carves out an exclusion so that a thing is not covered by a broader claim

Etymology: "Excepter" is simply "except" with the agent suffix "-er," so it names a person who excepts, or leaves someone or something out. The base verb carries the more interesting history. It comes from Old French "excepter," which descends from Latin "exceptare," a frequentative of "excipere," meaning "to take out." That Latin verb combines "ex-" (out) and "capere" (to take), so an exception was literally something taken out of a group. The same sense of removal runs through the noun. An excepter is someone who sets a case apart from a general rule, and the term is built directly on that older idea of taking something out of the whole.