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thence

UK/ðɛns/US/ðɛns/
adverbC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,233 of 15,258leans written

Thence means from that place or that fact, in old use. Thence to London, and thence it follows, thence onward.

It belongs with hence and whence, and all three are archaic outside legal and formal writing — hence has survived best. The -ce ending marks from: hence is from here, thence from there, whence from where. Note that from thence is redundant and was common anyway.

Definitions of thence

  1. 1adverbthenceFrom that place or that fact.C2

    “We flew to Singapore and thence to Sydney.”

thence is an adverb of place.

Where it comes from

Middle English thennes is thenne, from there, plus an adverbial ending. Hence and whence are formed the same way.

  1. Proto-West Germanic

    *þananā

  2. Middle English

    þennes

  3. English, today

    thence

From Middle English þennes, from þenne + -es, the former from þanan, þanona, from Proto-West Germanic þananā. Cognate with Westphalian Low German diëne.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

thence in the wild

  • The west side of Dial Mountain drains into Gill Brook, thence into the East Branch of Ausable River, and into Lake Champlain.

    Dial Mountain

  • The southeast side of Dial Mountain drains into the headwaters of the North Fork of the Boquet River, thence into Lake Champlain.

    Dial Mountain

  • The northeast side of Doubletop Mountain drains into the headwaters of Dry Brook, thence into the East Branch of the Delaware River.

    Doubletop Mountain (New York)

  • The northwest end of Doubletop Mountain drains into Flatiron Brook, thence into Dry Brook.

    Doubletop Mountain (New York)

  • The east end of Table Mountain drains into Rondout Creek, thence into the Hudson River, and into New York Bay.

    Table Mountain (New York)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.