WHEREFORE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wherefore mean? 

• WHEREFORE (noun)
  The noun WHEREFORE has 1 sense:

1. the cause or intention underlying an action or situation, especially in the phrase 'the whys and wherefores'

  Familiarity information: WHEREFORE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WHEREFORE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The cause or intention underlying an action or situation, especially in the phrase 'the whys and wherefores'

Classified under:

Nouns denoting goals

Synonyms:

wherefore; why

Hypernyms ("wherefore" is a kind of...):

ground; reason (a rational motive for a belief or action)

 Context examples 

She could always follow her father and mother, her brothers and Olney; wherefore, when she could not follow Martin, she believed the fault lay with him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Moklan is my son, wherefore he is brave man— "Was not my father brave man?" Zilla demanded.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Wherefore is there in him little dog and much wolf.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“This is what it is to live,” he cried; “now I enjoy existence! But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful!”

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Wherefore Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his room and sign it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead were dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

My mother has no one, save me; wherefore I speak.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

He had a method of accepting things, without questioning the why and wherefore.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)