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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
either
I.conjunction
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
either side (=both sides)
▪ There were tall hedges on either side of the lawn.
either...or
▪ Grapes are usually either green or red.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
in any/either event
▪ A routine, in any event, has certainly established itself.
▪ Anyway, in the 1970s, there had been strong unions, and everything I deplored had happened in any event.
▪ In practical curatorial terms the abstraction of software is, in any event, something of a pseudo-problem.
▪ It was in any event difficult to see what compromise could satisfy both Buenos Aires and London.
▪ Ordering her would be ludicrous under the changed circumstances, and in any event, a waste of time.
▪ Power is, in any event, a serious problem on the Moon.
▪ The cost will be passed on to their customers, who are all of us, in any event.
▪ The processes that have been described will go on in any event.
on either/every hand
▪ Ancient oak gave place to modern pine forest on either hand.
▪ Gaston was a fishmonger who left evidence of his occupation on every hand he shook.
▪ Mist curled from the water on either hand.
▪ The drive is spectacular: gorges and tropical rain forests and waterfalls on every hand, but I thought only of Poppy.
within two feet/ten years etc either way
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
Either eat some more, or take some of those meatballs home with you.
▪ You can choose either french fries, baked potato, or mashed potatoes.
II.determiner
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Do you have insurance on either one of these cars?
▪ Sandy's brothers were standing on either side of her.
▪ There are gas stations at either end of the block.
III.adverb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "Didn't she tell you her name?" "No, and I didn't introduce myself, either."
▪ "I didn't know you could go skiing in Hawaii." "I didn't either."
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But you can't eat him either, sir!
▪ Sir Bernard never recovered from the loss either.
▪ The big bucks have not changed her life much either, Brandt avers.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Either

Either \Ei"ther\, conj. Either precedes two, or more, co["o]rdinate words or phrases, and is introductory to an alternative. It is correlative to or.

Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth.
--1 Kings xviii. 27.

Few writers hesitate to use either in what is called a triple alternative; such as, We must either stay where we are, proceed, or recede.
--Latham.

Note: Either was formerly sometimes used without any correlation, and where we should now use or.

Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs?
--James iii. 12.

Either

Either \Ei"ther\ ([=e]"[th][~e]r or [imac]"[th][~e]r; 277), a. & pron. [OE. either, aither, AS. [=ae]g[eth]er, [=ae]ghw[ae][eth]er (akin to OHG. [=e]ogiwedar, MHG. iegeweder); [=a] + ge + hw[ae][eth]er whether. See Each, and Whether, and cf. Or, conj.]

  1. One of two; the one or the other; -- properly used of two things, but sometimes of a larger number, for any one.

    Lepidus flatters both, Of both is flattered; but he neither loves, Nor either cares for him.
    --Shak.

    Scarce a palm of ground could be gotten by either of the three.
    --Bacon.

    There have been three talkers in Great British, either of whom would illustrate what I say about dogmatists.
    --Holmes.

  2. Each of two; the one and the other; both; -- formerly, also, each of any number.

    His flowing hair In curls on either cheek played.
    --Milton.

    On either side . . . was there the tree of life.
    --Rev. xxii. 2.

    The extreme right and left of either army never engaged.
    --Jowett (Thucyd).

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
either

Old English ægðer, contraction of æghwæðer (pron., adv., conj.) "each of two, both," from a "always" (see aye (adv.)) + ge- collective prefix + hwæðer "which of two, whether" (see whether). Cognate with Dutch ieder, Old High German eogiwedar, German jeder "either, each, every").\n

\nModern sense of "one or the other of two" is late 13c. Adverbially, for emphasis, "in any case, at all," especially when expressing negation, by 1828. Use of either-or to suggest an unavoidable choice between alternatives (1931) in some cases reflects Danish enten-eller, title of an 1843 book by Kierkegaard.

Wiktionary
either

adv. (label en conjunctive after a negative) As well. conj. Introduces the first of two options, the second of which is introduced by "or". det. 1 Each of two. (from 9th c.) 2 One or the other of two. (from 14th c.) pron. 1 (context obsolete English) both, each of two or more. 2 One or other of two people or things.

WordNet
either

adv. after a negative statement used as an intensive meaning something like `likewise' or `also'; "he isn't stupid, but he isn't exactly a genius either"; "I don't know either"; "if you don't order dessert I won't either"

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "either".

For if so be it doth not, then may ye all abide at home, and eat of my meat, and drink of my cup, but little chided either for sloth or misdoing, even as it hath been aforetime.

Either come down to us into the meadow yonder, that we may slay you with less labour, or else, which will be the better for you, give up to us the Upmeads thralls who be with you, and then turn your faces and go back to your houses, and abide there till we come and pull you out of them, which may be some while yet.

Moira had simply joined them uninvited, though where either of the MacInnes men were concerned, Abigail looked upon Moira as a welcome interloper.

He noticed the older antidepressants like amitriptyline decreased psychic ability, while the newer serotonin reuptake inhibitors were either neutral or they enhanced it.

For if invocations, conjurations, fumigations and adorations are used, then an open pact is formed with the devil, even if there has been no surrender of body and soul together with explicit abjuration of the Faith either wholly or in part.

Greeks I desire no communion, either in this world or in the next, and I abjure forever the Byzantine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and his Melchite slaves.

I think this must be admitted, when we find that there are hardly any domestic races, either amongst animals or plants, which have not been ranked by some competent judges as mere varieties, and by other competent judges as the descendants of aboriginally distinct species.

Guard Captain arrived, he told me that I could either stay in jail all night and face trial in the morning or I could trust in the judgment of the gods by being in the front ranks of the defenders when Abraxas attacked that evening.

Except for the annoyance of the bombs, the gunners of the forts had it much their own way until the broadsides of the Pensacola, which showed eleven heavy guns on either side, drew up abreast of them.

Memphis from New Orleans, even the narrow strip on either side swept by their cannon was safe at any point only while they were abreast it.

Their theory is confirmed by the cases in which two mixed substances occupy a greater space than either singly, especially a space equal to the conjoined extent of each: for, as they point out, in an absolute interpenetration the infusion of the one into the other would leave the occupied space exactly what it was before and, where the space occupied is not increased by the juxtaposition, they explain that some expulsion of air has made room for the incoming substance.

When the tentacles do not begin moving for a much longer time, namely, from half an hour to three or four hours, the particles have been slowly brought into contact with the glands, either by the secretion being absorbed by the particles or by its gradual spreading over them, together with its consequent quicker evaporation.

It is therefore clear that matter had been absorbed which was either actually poisonous or of too stimulating a nature.

This illustration is not intended to apply to the older bridges with widely distended masses, which render each pier sufficient to abut the arches springing from it, but tend, in providing for a way over the river, to choke up the way by the river itself, or to compel the river either to throw down the structure or else to destroy its own banks.

Here he reared a continuous rampart with a ditch in front of it, fair-sized forts, probably a dozen in number, built either close behind it or actually abutting on it, and a connecting road running from end to end.