Word.ws English Dictionary

on earth

on earth prepositional phrase: expletive used for emphasis after an interrogative word.

Prepositional phrase (1)

  1. Expletive used for emphasis after an interrogative word.
    • How on earth did you manage to pull that off?
    • What on earth does he want?

Prepositional phrase (2) capitalized: on Earth

  1. Alternative letter-case form of on earth.

Examples of on earth in a sentence

  • Who on earth would do such a thing?
  • Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?1895, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest […] , [Act I]:
  • How on earth are we supposed to hold our heads high as the 'mother of parliaments' when we allow to continue the practice of almost openly buying a seat in parliament?2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The...

Synonyms of on earth

Questions about on earth

What does on earth mean?
On earth means expletive used for emphasis after an interrogative word.
How do you use on earth in a sentence?
Who on earth would do such a thing?
What part of speech is on earth?
On earth is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on earth in the dictionary

  1. on dit
  2. on dits
  3. on drive
  4. on drives
  5. on duty
  6. on earth
  7. on edge
  8. on end
  9. on equal footing
  10. on equal terms
  11. on eternal patrol

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on earth (page history and authors); on Earth (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-on earth.wav.

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