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

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From where +‎ by.

whereby (not comparable)

  1. (interrogative, obsolete) By what, in which direction; how.
    Whereby goest thou?
  2. By which.
    • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
      Shylock:
      Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that:
      You take my house when you do take the prop
      That doth sustain my house; you take my life
      When you do take the means whereby I live.
    • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 179:
      M. Sawrey […] devised a mechanical method whereby theatrical scenes could be changed in a simple way.
    • 1990, Local management of schools, Kogan Page Ltd:
      Other heads saw devolution as a whole new way of life and adopted an approach whereby the power of devolution was used to enable the school to drive the curriculum.
  3. (nonstandard) Where, wherein, in which.
    • 2025 February 17, David Gilbert, “No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits”, in WIRED‎[1], archived from the original on 19 February 2025:
      Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.

Use of whereby as a formal equivalent of where is nonstandard, with where or in which typically preferred instead.

by which