Where

Pronunciation

• UK enPR: hwâr, IPA: /ʍɛə(ɹ)/
• US enPR: wâr, IPA: /wɛɹ/, /ʍɛɹ/
• Homophones: ware, wear in accents with the wine-whine merger

Origin

From Middle English wher, quher, from Old English hwǣr ("where", literally at what place), from Proto-Germanic *hwar ("where"), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷo-. Cognate with Scots quhare ("where"), West Frisian wêr ("where"), Dutch waar ("where"), German wo ("where"), Danish hvor ("where"), Icelandic hvar ("where"); related to Old English hwā ("who"). More at who.

Full definition of where

Conjunction

1. While on the contrary; although; whereas.
• William ShakespeareAnd flight and die is death destroying death;
  Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
• July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Riseshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/Where the Joker preys on our fears of random, irrational acts of terror, Bane has an all-consuming, dictatorial agenda that’s more stable and permanent, a New World Order that’s been planned out with the precision of a military coup.
• 2013-06-14, Jonathan Freedland, Obama's once hip brand is now tainted, Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.
2. Where Susy has trouble coloring inside the lines, Johnny has already mastered shading.
3. At or in which place or situation.
• 2013, Henry Petroski, Geothermal Energy, Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.
4. He is looking for a house where he can have a complete office.
   I've forgotten where I was in this book, but it was probably around chapter four.
5. To which place or situation.
   The snowbirds travel where it is warm.
6. Wherever.
   Their job is to go where they are called.
7. (legal) In a position, case, etc., in which.
   Where no provision under this Act is applicable, the case shall be decided in accordance with the customary practices.

Adverb

1. used interrogatively, in either a direct or indirect question At what place; to what place; what place.Where are you?Where are you going?Where did you come from?
2. In what situation.Where would we be without our parents?

Pronoun

1. The place in which.He lives within five miles of where he was born.

Noun

1. The place in which something happens.A good article will cover the who, the what, the when, the where, the why and the how.Finding the nymph asleep in secret where. — Spenser.

Derived terms

Anagrams

• hewer