somewhile
/ˈsʌmʍaɪl/
somewhile adverb: sometimes; from time to time; at times.
Adverb
somewhile (not comparable)
- Sometimes; from time to time; at times
- At a certain time; at one time; for a non-defined length of time
- Tho, under colour of shepeheards, somewhile / There crept in wolves, ful of fraude and guile.1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “May. Ægloga Quinta.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC
- Of him that spoke, and stopped at last, and sat
Still, underneath where Gris Grillon was laid,
And heard, somewhile, with languid scornful gaze,
The friar putting blame on priest and knight.1868, Sidney Lanier, The Jacquerie. A Fragment, Chapter IV
Forms of somewhile
| alternative form | somwhile |
|---|
Origin of somewhile
From Middle English summehwile, summewile, sumwile, equivalent to some + while. Compare Dutch somwijlen (“sometimes”).
Words formed from somewhile
Questions about somewhile
- What does somewhile mean?
- Somewhile means sometimes; from time to time; at times.
- What part of speech is somewhile?
- Somewhile is an adverb.
- How do you pronounce somewhile?
- Somewhile is pronounced /ˈsʌmʍaɪl/.
Words near somewhile in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: somewhile (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:
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Cite this entry: “somewhile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/somewhile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.