somewhy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From some +‎ why, in analogy with somewhere, somehow etc.

somewhy (not comparable)

  1. (rare) For some reason.
    • 1864, Robert Browning, “Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"”, in Wikisource, line 505‎[1], retrieved 18 January 2012:
      Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn
      What some was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy?
    • 1988, William Morris, 1924, quotee, edited by Thomas P. Riggio, Letters to Women: New Letters‎[2], Reprint edition, University of Illinois Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 179:
      I loved them both—but not so very much else in the book—but I read them over twice & thought—somewhy—of Highland Park & our quaint little trips to Los Angles[_sic_] & elsewhere thereabouts on the street car.
    • 2003, Cameron Royce Jess, Bearer of the Chose Seed‎[3] (Fiction), Inscape Publications, →ISBN, page 15:
      Somewhy I've always had this stupid idea that something or something or somebody awful is waiting here for me.
    • 2008, Margaret Feinberg, “Bring Them to Me”, in The Sacred Echo‎[4], Zondervan, →ISBN, page unk:
      But somehow, somewhy, he did something and that woman knew it. And somehow, somewhy on a whole lot of other days he doesn't do anything we can see ...
    • 2011, Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies‎[5] (Fiction), Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 92:
      Or is it actually him? Still holding on somewhere, somehow, somewhy.