Word.ws English Dictionary

whenabout

whenabout adverb: approximately in time.

Adverb

whenabout (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) Approximately in time.
    • In the first place, I wish to congratulate the Premier upon the spirit which has inspired him to bring about the change from “colony” to “dominion"; and the only defect in the spirit I can really find isthat^([sic]) he is premature to the extent of whenabout fifty years.1907, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates - Volume 139, page 376
  2. At what approximate time.
    • Having expected the Rector of Faringdon for some time at my house, I could not so well say whenabout we should endeavour to get to Town; […]1877, Gilbert White, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, page 147
    • yet the results are only approximate; and in the dates given below no painful accuracy is attempted; it being enough for our purpose to know when or whenabout any drama was produced.1913, James Stalker, How to Read Shakespeare: A Guide for the General Reader, page 221

Noun

whenabout (uncountable)

  1. The approximate time.
    • After a dogged silence of long months, in which there have been scores of anxious inquiries on the part of our readers, as to his whereabout, whatabout, and whenabout,—and when-to-be-about,—the Indifferent Man has at length, in the cool indifference of his own good time, 'forked over' the stanzas...1855 March, “Editors' Tableau”, in Genius of the West: A Magazine of Western Literature, volume 4, number 3, page 92, column 1
    • Moreover, two events which are simultaneous to one observer, are not necessarily simultaneous to another observer. The whereabout depends upon the whenabout and the whenabout depends upon the whereabout, not only that, but each depends also on the velocity of an observer.1919, University of Illinois. High school visitor, Proceedings of the High School Conference, page 358

Forms of whenabout

alternative formwhenabouts

Origin of whenabout

From when + about.

Questions about whenabout

What does whenabout mean?
Whenabout means approximately in time.
What part of speech is whenabout?
Whenabout can be an adverb or a noun.

Words near whenabout in the dictionary

  1. when'd
  2. when'll
  3. when're
  4. when's
  5. when, as, and if
  6. whenabout
  7. whenabouts
  8. whenas
  9. Whenby
  10. whence
  11. whenceafter

Source and license

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