Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb From where; from what place.
- adverb From what origin or source.
- conjunction Out of which place; from or out of which.
- conjunction By reason of which; from which.
from The Century Dictionary.
- From what place? from what source, origin, or antecedents?
- From what place; from which place or source.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb From what place; hence, from what or which source, origin, antecedent, premise, or the like; how; -- used interrogatively.
- adverb From what or which place, source, material, cause, etc.; the place, source, etc., from which; -- used relatively.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb From
where ; from whichplace orsource . - conjunction From where.
- conjunction literary, poetic From which.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb from what place, source, or cause
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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And hence assumption determines the term whence and the term whither; for assumption means a taking to oneself from another.
Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition Aquinas Thomas
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The idea of from is included in the word whence -- therefore it is unnecessary to say "From whence."
The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing A Manual of Ready Reference Joseph Triemens
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In St. Benedict we find the name vespera which has prevailed, whence the French word vêpres and the English vespers.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Tournely-Zwirner 1840-1916 1913
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Aimeri de Narbonne, from Almaric, [Footnote: A metathesis of Amalric, which is found in Anglo-Saxon.] whence Ital.
The Romance of Names Ernest Weekley 1909
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From whence is your good ship, and whither is she bound? '
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Of whence is your fair ship, and whither is she bound? '
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So mundus in Latin, whence Augustine's oxymoron, "O munde immunde!"
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The first toast at every festival here was drunk in his honour, and, besides the first of May, one day in every week was held sacred to him, and, from his Saxon name, Woden, was called Woden's day, whence the English word "Wednesday" has been derived.
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They are also occasionally seen to the southward among the Catskills, where they were formerly so numerous as to have given a name to the stream and the mountain whence it flows.
Rural Hours 1887
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Scripture, which is designed not to give dogmatic formularies, but to be the fountain whence all such formularies are to be drawn according to the exigencies of the several churches and ages.
patiomensch commented on the word whence
It makes me angry when people say "from whence." ARRR!!!
April 14, 2007
uselessness commented on the word whence
Is this word ever followed by anything other than "it came"?
April 16, 2007
seanahan commented on the word whence
Good king Whence is Laus? After he punched me I whenced?
April 17, 2007
patiomensch commented on the word whence
Any motion verb would work, methinks. "Whence it flew/flowed/drifted" and on and on and on and on.
April 18, 2007
brtom commented on the word whence
Lady Sneerwell. The paragraphs, you say, Mr. Snake, were all inserted?
Snake. They were, madam; and, as I copied them myself in a feigned hand, there can be no suspicion whence they came.
Sheridan, School for Scandal
January 5, 2008