Word.ws English Dictionary

for that

for that conjunction: because.

Conjunction

for that

  1. (archaic) Because.
    • At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him...1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress
    • Being desired to name some other persons for whom he made shoes; says, he made shoes for madam Loftus, (and named several others) and added, that he had custom enough, for that he made shoes for the troop.1813, Thomas Bayly Howell, “The Trial in Ejectment between Campbell Craig, Lessee of James Annesley, esq. and others, Plaintiff; and the Right Hon. Richard Earl of Anglesea, Defendant, A.D. 1743”, in...
    Synonyms:
    as, given that, since

Synonyms of for that

Origin of for that

From Middle English for that, from an alteration of Old English for þon (þe), with the instrumental demonstrative pronoun þon replaced by nominative/accusative þæt due to levelling of the Old English declensional system in Middle English. Equivalent to for (“because of”) + that. Compare forthan, a parallel descendant of the same construction without the declensional levelling.

Questions about for that

What does for that mean?
For that means because.
What part of speech is for that?
For that is a conjunction.

Words near for that in the dictionary

  1. for someone
  2. for sour apples
  3. for sport
  4. for starters
  5. for sure
  6. for that
  7. for that manner
  8. for that matter
  9. for the ages
  10. for the asking
  11. for the best

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: for that (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-for that.ogg.

Cite this entry: “for that.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/for_that. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.