WHENCE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Whence

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/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.

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Etymology of 'Whence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Whence" Quotes from Famous Books

... set sail from Amsterdam, intending for the East-Indies; our ship had to name the place from whence we came, the Amsterdam burthen 350. Tun, and having a fair gale of Wind, on the 27 of May following we had a sight of the high Peak Tenriffe belonging to the Canaries, we have touched at the Island Palma, but having endeavoured it twice, and finding the ...

— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... But whence comes the royal race, the aristocracy, the priesthood? You inquire, and you find that they usually know not themselves. They are usually—I had almost dared to say, always—foreigners. They have crossed the neighbouring mountains. The have come by sea, ...

— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... some mischievous fellow had made incomplete. How often did we read and re-read every line, and trace every road in the little map. At length we set off on our return to Newport. The rain partially ceased, and we were attracted out of the road to Luttrell's Tower, whence we were compelled to seek shelter in a miserable public-house in a village about three miles distant. No spare bed, a wretched smoky fire; and hard beer, and poor cheese, called Isle of Wight rock, ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various

... rumble from Alvina's piano. This is the storm from whence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain—Miss Poppy twirling till her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow above her now darkened legs. The footlights are all but extinguished. Miss Poppy is ...

— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... and whom he regarded as a model story-teller. I am tempted to quote his account at length. "Anything but beautiful," he says, "she has facile speech, efficacious phrases, an attractive manner of telling, whence you divine her extraordinary memory and the sallies of her natural wit. Messia already reckons her seventy years, and is a mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. As a child, she was told by her grandmother an infinity of tales which she had learned ...

— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

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