whence
English
WOTD – 9 November 2012
Etymology
From Middle English whennes, from Old English hwanone (with adverbial genitive -s), related to hwænne (whence when). Analyzable as when + -s.
Pronunciation
- enPR: hwĕns, IPA(key): /ʍɛns/
- (in accents with the wine-whine merger) enPR: wĕns, IPA(key): /wɛns/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛns
Adverb
whence (not comparable)
- (archaic, formal or literary) From where; from which place or source.
- Whence came I?
- "Pork" comes from French, whence we get most of our modern cooking terms.
- 1611, King James BibleWikisource, John 8:14:
- 1818, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Chapter 4:
- Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?
- 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Sea-chest”, in Treasure IslandWikisource:
- [W]hat greatly encouraged me, it was in an opposite direction from that whence the blind man had made his appearance and whither he had presumably returned.
- 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 564:
- […] But when I had bestridden the plank, quoth I to myself, "Thou deserveth all that betideth thee. All this is decreed to me of Allah (whose name be exalted!), to turn me from my greed of gain, whence ariseth all that I endure, for I have wealth galore."
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, Chapter 3:
- At first I could not tell what this new sound was, nor whence it came, and now it seemed a little noise close by, and now a great noise in the distance. And then it grew nearer and more defined, and in a moment I knew it was the sound of voices talking.
Usage notes
- This word is uncommon in contemporary usage; from where is now usually substituted (as in the example sentence: Where did I come from? or From where did I come?). Whence is now mainly encountered in older works and in poetic or literary writing.
- From whence has a strong literary precedent, appearing in Wyclif's Bible translation, Shakespeare and the King James Bible, as well as in the writings of numerous Victorian-era writers. In recent times, however, it has been criticized as redundant by usage commentators.
Antonyms
Derived terms
Terms derived from whence
Translations
from where; from which place or source
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Conjunction
whence
- (literary, poetic) Used for introducing the result of a fact that has just been stated.
- The work is slow and dangerous, whence the high costs.
- I scored more than you in the exam, whence we can conclude that I am better at the subject than you are.
Antonyms
Translations
conjunction
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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