Posted by ernie beach on June 07, 2005 at 22:45:27:
In Reply to: Re: Perhaps I did not notice this before-- posted by Glenn Ribotsky on June 06, 2005 at 22:21:47:
2 entries found for whence.
whence ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hwns, wns)
adv.
From where; from what place: Whence came this traveler?
From what origin or source: Whence comes this splendid feast?
conj.
Out of which place; from or out of which.
By reason of which; from which: The dog was coal black from nose to tail, whence the name Shadow.
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[Middle English whennes : whenne, whence (from Old English hwanon. See kwo- in Indo-European Roots) + -es, genitive sing. suff.; see -s3.]
Usage Note: The construction from whence has been criticized as redundant since the 18th century. It is true that whence incorporates the sense of from: a remote village, whence little news reached the wider world. But from whence has been used steadily by reputable writers since the 14th century, most notably in the King James Bible: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” (Psalms). Such a respectable precedent makes it difficult to label the construction as incorrect. Still, it may be observed that whence (like thence) is most often used nowadays to impart an archaic or highly formal tone to a passage, and that this effect is probably better realized if the archaic syntax of the wordwithout fromis preserved as well.
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Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
whence
adv : from what place or origin or source; "whence did he come?"; "whence comes this splendid feast?"; "sketches the lawless society whence the ballads sprang"-DeLancey Ferguson [syn: wherefrom]
Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University