Word.ws English Dictionary

why for

why for adverb: what for; for what reason; why.

Adverb

why for (not comparable)

  1. (dialectal) What for; for what reason; why.
    • "Why for didn't you come to breaksis?" she says. "What a timdoodle of a chap you be!"1914, The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, volume 42, page 96

Questions about why for

What does why for mean?
Why for means what for; for what reason; why.
What part of speech is why for?
Why for is an adverb.

Words near why for in the dictionary

  1. why aye
  2. why buy a book when you can join a library
  3. why buy a book when you can join the library
  4. why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free
  5. why come
  6. why for
  7. why God invented
  8. why in God's name
  9. why in the world
  10. why in time
  11. why is the ocean near the shore

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: why for (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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