Somehow means in a way nobody can quite explain. Somehow it worked, somehow or other, we managed somehow.
It marks the speaker's own puzzlement, which is why it so often carries relief or suspicion — somehow he passed. Placed before an adjective it hedges: somehow wrong, somehow familiar. Note somehow or other, the emphatic form; and that the word is simply some plus how, built like somewhere and somewhat.
1adverbsomehowIn a way nobody can quite explain.
“The door was locked, but somehow the cat got out of the house.”
somehow is a manner unexplained.
Some plus how, on the pattern of somewhere and somewhat. The compound is Middle English.
From some + how.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA