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PlainSpell

whence

/ʍɛns/conjunction

whence is spelled W-H-E-N-C-E: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 25,367th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a conjunction, whence means “Used for introducing the result of a fact that has just been stated; thence” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in whence?

Letters6: W-H-E-N-C-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1.3 times per million words; the 25,367th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is whence?

Whence appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 25,367th most frequent word form in the list.

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

How do you pronounce whence?

  • /ʍɛns/
  • /wɛns/

Whence has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-whence.ogg, En-au-whence.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What does whence mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

conjunction

  1. 1

    Used for introducing the result of a fact that has just been stated; thence

    The work is slow and dangerous, whence the high costs.

adverb

  1. 1

    archaicFrom where; from which place or source.

    Whence came I?

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Whence in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchd'où (from where; from which place or source)
Germanwoher (from where; from which place or source), von daher (conjunction)
Portuguesedonde, de onde (from where; from which place or source)
Spanishde/desde donde, onde (from where; from which place or source), de ahí (conjunction)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does whence come from?

From Middle English whennes, from Old English hwanon (with adverbial genitive -s), related to hwonne (whence when). Analyzable as when + -s.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after whence