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whence

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English whennes , from Old English hwanon (with adverbial genitive -s ), related to hwonne (whence when ). Analyzable as when +‎ -s .

Pronunciation

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Adverb

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whence (not comparable )

  1. (archaic , formal or literary ) From where, from which: from which place or source.
    Antonym: whither
    Whence came I?
    "Pork" comes from French, whence we get most of our modern cooking terms.
    Go to whence you came!
    That envy whence comes hate.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, [...] (King James Version), London: [...] Robert Barker, [...], →OCLC, John 8:14 , column 1:
      Iesus answered, and said vnto them, Though I beare record of my selfe, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I goe: but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I goe.
    • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], "A Further Account of Glubbdubdrib. [...]", in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. [...] [Gulliver’s Travels ], volume II, London: [...] Benj[amin] Motte, [...], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 108:
      I could plainly discover from whence one Family derives a long Chin; why a second hath abounded with Knaves for two Generations, and Fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be Sharpers.
    • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter III, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. [...] , volume I, London: [...] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, pages 81–82:
      Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?
    • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Sea Chest", in Treasure Island , London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part I (The Old Buccaneer), page 29:
      [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.
    • 1883, A. E. Housman, Fragment of a Greek Tragedy:
      O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
      Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
      Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
      To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
    • 1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, "The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman", in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night [...] , Shammar edition, volume VI, [London]: [...] Burton Club [...], →OCLC, page 71:
      [...]But when I had bestridden the plank, quoth I to myself, "Thou deservest 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[ohn] Meade Falkner, "A Discovery", in Moonfleet , London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC, page 47:
      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.
    • 1936, Robert Frost, "The Vindictives", in A Further Range:
      They swore all the gold should go back
      Deep into the earth whence it came.

Usage notes

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  • This word is archaic 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, formal or literary writing. As a result of the obsolescence of the older directional verb system, words like whence and its antonym whither are sometimes used interchangeably as hypercorrect synonyms of where, as seen in the example below.
2017 November 17, "We rightly remember those who fell across Europe and beyond", in The Northern Times‎[1] :
I remember my father telling me of the 11th of November in London, whence he had gone from Tain to work, in the 1930s.
  • From whence (literally, "from from-where"), despite being a redundant construction, has a strong literary precedent, mainly for poetic effect, appearing in Wyclif's Bible translation (one of the earliest ones), Shakespeare's works, and the King James Bible, as well as in the writings of numerous Victorian-era writers. In recent times, its pleonastic character has been criticized by some usage commentators, but study of real-world corpora indicates that many English speakers today are likelier to use from whence (despite its redundancy) than whence, and there are plausible hypotheses as to why, involving a lesser degree of cognitive divergence from predominant patterns of syntax in today's English. It is worth knowing, for writers who wish their diction to be seen as optimal by fussy readers, that choosing whence over from whence avoids this quibble; but it is also true that the quibble is hypercorrective, as from whence has a respectable history in well-regarded English literature, although some English-language authors have expressed the opinion that whence alone (or even any use of whence) seems too stilted and archaic to be used in modern writing (with from which being the safe alternative), but that proscription has not been widely adopted.

Derived terms

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Translations

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from where; from which place or source

Conjunction

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whence

  1. (literary , poetic ) Used for introducing the result of a fact that has just been stated; thence
    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

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Translations

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conjunction — see also so,‎ ergo,‎ therefore,‎ thus
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

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