WHENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Whence

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/wɛns/ /hwɛns/ Listen

adverb

Whence adv.

From what place; hence, from what or which source, origin, antecedent, premise, or the like; how; used interrogatively. "Whence hath this man this wisdom?" "Whence and what art thou?"

From what or which place, source, material, cause, etc.; the place, source, etc., from which; used relatively. "Grateful to acknowledge whence his good Descends." Note: All the words of this class, whence, where, whither, whereabouts, etc., are occasionally used as pronouns by a harsh construction. "O, how unlike the place from whence they fell?" Note: From whence, though a pleonasm, is fully authorized by the use of good writers. "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" Of whence, also a pleonasm, has become obsolete.

See images of 'Whence'

Etymology of 'Whence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Whence" Quotes from Famous Books

... left me with a great feeling of insecurity. If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whence came the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liege burghers and harassed the country round about for a hundred leagues? The cunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servant to hide the frailty of ...

— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Engagements for his two next Duels to a Couple of particular Friends. Upon which the Gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his Lordship would not take it ill if he medled no farther in an Affair from whence he himself was to receive ...

— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... flared wildly as though she had nearly dropped the torch. "Wh ... whence came the ...

— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young

... man of his acquaintance whose ambition it had been for months to cross the bath by means of the swinging rings, and this person, too, afforded him hardly less pleasure, as he always had to let go at the fourth ring, if not the third, whence he plunged into the water with a sound that, curiously enough, ...

— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... horses to her. The Indians inform us that there is a plenty of Moos to the S. E. of them on the East branch of Lewis's river which they Call Tommawamah River. About noon Sergt. Ordway Frazier and Wiser returnd. with 17 Salmon and Some roots of the Cows; the distance was So great from whence they brought the fish, that most of them were nearly Spoiled. those fish were as fat as any I ever saw; Sufficiently So to cook themselves without the addition of Grease or butter; those which were Sound were extreemly delicious; their flesh is of a fine rose colour ...

— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

More quotes...