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WHENCE
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I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
From what place, source, or cause
Classified under:
Context examples:
“I wonder whence that stair leads?” said Jim.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
His name, he replied, was Willoughby, and his present home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him the honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
The letter, whence sprang all this felicity, was short, containing little more than this assurance of success; and every particular was deferred till James could write again.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Sherlock Holmes and I walked together to the High Street, where we stopped at the shop of Harding Brothers, whence the bust had been purchased.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
She made a hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously on foot.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He was possessed by a madness to live, to thrill, "to squirm my little space in the cosmic dust whence I came," as he phrased it once himself.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Whence come they, these peoples, these lordly nations, these mighty countries which rise up before me?
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Here an ancient monastery, whence the solemn chanting of the monks came down to them.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
At four o'clock he executed a running jump, gained the roof of the chicken-house and leaped to the ground outside, whence he sauntered gravely to the house.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a few seconds—and the only source whence any thing like consolation or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
