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Therefor or therefore?

therefor is an adverb meaning “For that; in return for that”; therefore is an adverb meaning “Consequently, by or in consequence of that or this cause; referring to…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) therefore is about 91 times as common as therefor.

thereforortherefore

What is the difference between therefor and therefore?

therefortherefore
Part of speechadverbadverb
Meaning

For that; in return for that

Consequently, by or in consequence of that or this cause; referring to something previously stated

Examplenone recordedTraditional values will always have a place–therefore, they will never lose relevance
Pronunciation/ðɛəˈfɔː/ /ðɛəɹˈfɔɹ//ˈðɛə.fɔː/ /ˈðɛːfoː/ /ˈðɛːfɔː/
In writingabout once in every 1 million words74 times per million words

Sources: therefor and therefore in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Every current meaning of therefor and therefore

therefor

  1. 1

    adverb For that; in return for that

therefore

  1. 1

    adverb Consequently, by or in consequence of that or this cause; referring to something previously stated

    Traditional values will always have a place–therefore, they will never lose relevance

Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.

Which is more common, therefor or therefore?

therefor appears about once in every 1 million words; therefore 74 times per million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How many people search therefor vs therefore?

“therefor vs therefore” is searched about 5,400 times a month on Google and 170 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“therefore vs therefor”, “therefor or therefore”).

Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.

The words