somewhy

/ˈsʌmwai/

somewhy adverb: for some reason.

Adverb

somewhy (not comparable)

(rare) For some reason.
- Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn
  What some was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy?1864, Robert Browning, “Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"”, in Wikisource, line 505, retrieved 18 Jan 2012
- I loved them both—but not so very much else in the book—but I read them over twice & thought—somewhy—of Highland Park & our quaint little trips to Los Angles^([sic]) & elsewhere thereabouts on the street car.1988, William Morris, 1924, quotee, edited by Thomas P. Riggio, Letters to Women: New Letters, Reprint edition, University of Illinois Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 179

Somewhy I've always had this stupid idea that something or something or somebody awful is waiting here for me.2003, Cameron Royce Jess, Bearer of the Chose Seed (Fiction), Inscape Publications, →ISBN, page 15:
But somehow, somewhy, he did something and that woman knew it.2008, Margaret Feinberg, “Bring Them to Me”, in The Sacred Echo, Zondervan, →ISBN, page unk:
Still holding on somewhere, somehow, somewhy.2011, Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies (Fiction), Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 92:

From some + why, in analogy with somewhere, somehow etc.

What does somewhy mean?: Somewhy means for some reason.
How do you use somewhy in a sentence?: Somewhy I've always had this stupid idea that something or something or somebody awful is waiting here for me.
What part of speech is somewhy?: Somewhy is an adverb.
How do you pronounce somewhy?: Somewhy is pronounced /ˈsʌmwai/.

Adapted from Wiktionary: somewhy (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: 2026-09-02

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