wherefor
wherefor is the alternative spelling of wherefore.
Meaning of wherefore
Adverb
wherefore (not comparable)
- Why, for what reason, because of what.
- Ah, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? / Denie thy Father, and refuſe thy name, / Or if thou wilt not be but ſworne my loue, / And il'e no longer be a Capulet.c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] Romeo and Juliet. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, published 1597, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]
- Therefore; thus.
- For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the...1830, Joseph Smith Jr., chapter 4, in The Book of Mormon^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon_(1981)/Jacob#Chapter_4), Jacob
Conjunction
wherefor
- For which.
Forms of wherefor
| plural | wherefors |
|---|
Origin of wherefor
From Middle English wherefore, wherefor (“for what reason; why”), equivalent to where (“what”) + fore (“for”).
From where (“what; which”) + for.
Questions about wherefor
- What does wherefor mean?
- Wherefor means for which.
- What is wherefor the alternative spelling of?
- Wherefor is the alternative spelling of wherefore.
- What part of speech is wherefor?
- Wherefor is a conjunction.
Words near wherefor in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wherefor (page history and authors); wherefore (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: “wherefor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wherefor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.