Word.ws English Dictionary

what with

what with preposition: owing to; because of; as a result of (used typically to introduce several causes of something).

Preposition

what with

  1. (idiomatic, informal) Owing to; because of; as a result of (used typically to introduce several causes of something)
    • She was sleeping very badly these days, what with the new baby and all the activity surrounding him.
    • What with it being too late and raining, we decided to stay home.

what with meaning in Arabic

what with in Arabic

owing to
حَيْث ḥayṯ, لِأَن liʔan, بِسَبَب bi-sabab

Examples of what with in a sentence

  • Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Great Expectations […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published...
  • It’s amazing that Plato, Aristotle and Socrates got any philosophizing done at all, what with all the lewd and lascivious behavior going on.2005, Annabelle du Fouet, “The murky world from whence it all came” (chapter 2), in Weather Balloons Make Rotten Sex Toys, Ellora's Cave...
  • It was hard to take him seriously, though, what with his multi-colored eye makeup.2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

Questions about what with

What does what with mean?
What with means owing to; because of; as a result of (used typically to introduce several causes of something).
What is what with in Arabic?
What with in Arabic is حَيْث (ḥayṯ), لِأَن (liʔan), بِسَبَب (bi-sabab). See What with meaning in Arabic.
How do you use what with in a sentence?
Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.
What part of speech is what with?
What with is a preposition.

Words near what with in the dictionary

  1. what was someone thinking
  2. what was that
  3. what was your first clue
  4. what way the wind is blowing
  5. what wins on Sunday sells on Monday
  6. what with
  7. what would Jesus do
  8. what would you like
  9. what you don't know can't hurt you
  10. what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts
  11. what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: what with (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: en-us-what with.ogg, en-au-what with.ogg.

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