when
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "when", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "when" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "when" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
when is anEnglishadv. It means: At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time. Pronounced /ˈwɛn/. It ranks #48 in English word frequency. Often confused with who and why.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | when |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adv |
| IPA | /ˈwɛn/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #48 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for when is 4 letters long, classified as anadv, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɛn/. Corpus data places it at rank #48 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for when, with forms such as "hwen", "wehn", and "whenn". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "who", "why", "win", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English when(ne), whan(ne), from Old English hwonne, from Proto-West Germanic *hwannē, from Proto-West Germanic *hwan, from Proto-Germanic *hwan (“at what time, when”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷís (interrogative base). Cognate with Scots whan… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is when, spelled W-H-E-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
- 2At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
- 3At an earlier time and under different, usually less favorable, circumstances.
- 4At which, on which, during which: often omitted or replaced with that.
- 5The time at, on or during which.
- 6A circumstance or situation in which.
Etymology
From Middle English when(ne), whan(ne), from Old English hwonne, from Proto-West Germanic *hwannē, from Proto-West Germanic *hwan, from Proto-Germanic *hwan (“at what time, when”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷís (interrogative base). Cognate with Scots whan (“when”), Dutch wanneer (“when”), wan (“when”) and wen (“when, if”), Low German wannehr (“when”), wann (“when”) and wenn (“if, when”), German wann (“when”) and wenn (“when, if”), Gothic 𐍈𐌰𐌽 (ƕan, “when, how”), Latin quandō (“when”). More at who. Interjection sense: a playful misunderstanding of "say when" (i.e. say something / speak up when you want me to stop) as "say [the word] when".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hwen,wehn,whenn,whhen,whne,wwhen
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for when
Misspelling Variants of "when"
Frequency rank: #48 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter W in our English index: