Dictionary

whenceness en · NOUN

Etymology

From whence + -ness.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The state or condition of being from somewhere.
   • As we followed him along the street, he explained our whyness, whenceness, and whitherness to all the loafing children of the sun who inquired of him. 1911, Outing: Sport, Adventure, Travel, Fiction - Volume 57:
   • Rather, the term "absolute" is employed to call attention to the fact that in their immediate self-consciousness all men are aware of the radical "whenceness" of their entire existence. 1971, Jerry H. Gill, The possibility of religious knowledge, page 56:
   • Biological whenceness blazoned ad oculos. 2019, Leo Steinberg, Sheila Schwartz, Michelangelo's Painting: Selected Essays, page 10:
2. (countable, uncountable) An unspecified location or condition from which something or someone has come.
   • No one knows how long it took the deep-sea canoes to reach Hawaii from New Zealand, or other whencenesses. 1937, All about Hawaii, page 44:
   • Therefore we don't really know our minds, don't know what our intention or “whenceness” is unless we understand where it came from. 2008, S. Brivic, Joyce through Lacan and Žižek: Explorations, page 116:
   • Every evening, between 8 and 9 o'clock, stones kept falling upon the roof of Mr. Elihu Neff's residence, in this township, and there was no accounting for the whenceness of their coming. 1995, John Robert Colombo, Ghost Stories of Ontario, page 39:
   • The "wherefores and whenceness. " 1898, Francis Bartow Lloyd, Lily C. Lloyd, Sketches of Country Life, page 175:

Forms

Relateds

anywhence · whenceforward · everywhence · whencever · whencesoever · whenceward · whenceforth · somewhence · nowhence · elsewhence