thence

English

Etymology

From Middle English þennes, from þenne +‎ -es (“adverbial ending”), the former from þanan, þanona, from Proto-West Germanic *þananā. Cognate with Westphalian Low German diëne.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ðɛns/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

  Rhymes: -ɛns

Adverb

thence (not comparable)

1. (formal) From there, from that place or from that time.

   I came thence.

   Cross fix at 6000 feet, thence descend to 3000 feet and fly direct to MAP (missed approach point).

   • 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg]: [Eucharius Cervicornus and Johannes Soter?], →OCLC, Judges j:[3], folio xiij, recto, column 2:

     And from thence he went agaynſt yͤ inhabiters of Debir (but Debir was called Kiriath Sepher afoꝛetyme.)

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 2:

     Miranda: O the heauens, / What fowle play had we, that we came from thence? / Or bleſſed was't we did?
     Prospero: Both, both my Girle. / By fowle-play (as thou ſayſt) were we heau'd thence, / But bleſſedly holpe hither.

   • 1965, James Cameron, “On the Way”, in Here is Your Enemy‎, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 16–17:

     My flight was going to Wu-han and Nan-ning and thence to Hanoi, which caused a certain interest; it is not every day that British passports go to North Vietnam. My immigration official was suitably inscrutable; he took the thing as no great drama (which it certainly was to me), rather did he appear to regard the trip as a quaint eccentricity.

   • 2005, Alpha Chiang, Kevin Wainwright, Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics, 4th edition, McGraw-Hill International, page 605:

     From this we can find the characteristic roots ${\displaystyle b_{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle b_{2}}$ and thence proceed to the remaining steps of the solution process.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:thence.
2. (literary) Deriving from this fact or circumstance; therefore, therefrom.

   I had a really bad car accident, and thence came all my backpains.

3. (archaic) From that time; thenceforth; thereafter

Antonyms

• thither

Derived terms

• thenceforth
• thenceforward

Related terms

• hence
• whence

Translations

from there

Armenian: անտի (hy) (anti) (archaic) Azerbaijani: oradan, ordan Bulgarian: следователно (bg) (sledovatelno) Czech: odtud (cs) Danish: deraf følger, deden, derfra Dutch: daarvandaan (nl), vandaar (nl) Finnish: tuolta (fi), sieltä (fi) French: dès lors (fr) (from that time on), de là (fr) (from that place) Galician: ende (archaic), en (gl) (archaic) German: daher (de), von dannen (de) (archaic), dorther (de) Gothic: 𐌸𐌰𐌸𐍂𐍉 (þaþrō) Greek: εκείθεν (el) (ekeíthen) Ancient: ἐκεῖθεν (ekeîthen) Hindi: वहाँ से (vahā̃ se) Hungarian: onnan (hu) Icelandic: þaðan (is) Ido: depose (io) Korean: 거기에서 (geogieseo) Latin: illim, illinc, inde (la), abinde Navajo: kodóó Norwegian: Bokmål: derfra, derifra Nynorsk: derifrå, derfrå Old English: þanan Polish: stamtąd (pl) Portuguese: desde aí, daí (pt) Romanian: de acolo Russian: отту́да (ru) (ottúda) Spanish: desde ahí Swedish: därifrån (sv), obsolete: dädan (sv) - dialectally shortened to dän (sv) (from that place); sedan (sv) (from that time on) Ukrainian: зві́дти (zvídty)

Anagrams

• techne