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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wherefore

Wherefore \Where"fore\, adv. & conj. [Where + for.]

  1. For which reason; so; -- used relatively.

    Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
    --Matt. vii. 20.

  2. For what reason; why; -- used interrogatively.

    But wherefore that I tell my tale.
    --Chaucer.

    Wherefore didst thou doubt?
    --Matt. xiv. 31.

Wherefore

Wherefore \Where"fore\, n. the reason why. [Colloq.]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wherefore

c.1200, hwarfore, from where + for. Similar formation in Dutch waarvoor, Old Norse hvar fyrir, Swedish varfor.

Wiktionary
wherefore

adv. 1 (context conjunctive archaic English) why, for what reason, because of what. 2 (context conjunctive archaic or formal English) therefore. conj. (context archaic English) because of which. n. An intent or purpose; a why.

WordNet
wherefore
  1. n. the cause or intention underlying an action or situation, especially in the phrase `the whys and wherefores' [syn: why]

  2. adv. for which reason; "wherefore do I receive this honor?" [syn: wherefor]

Usage examples of "wherefore".

Now it must be observed that every virtue acts in accordance with the time being, as also in keeping with other due circumstances, wherefore the virtue of penance has its act at this time, according to the requirements of the New Law.

Wherefore the forgiveness of sin is accounted the effect not only of the virtue of penance, but also, and that chiefly, of faith and charity.

The plants of rigidness, answered question and squeeze, Revealing wherefore it bloomed, uninviting, bent, Yet making harmony breathe of life and disease, The deeper chord of a wonderful instrument.

Lovely thou art and therefore to be loved, and day and night thou and Love the sum of my excogitations art, wherefore I, with loving art, am hither come to woo thee, since, lady, I do love thee.

Wherefore the saint punished him with the sentence of his malediction, and foretold that not one of his seed should reign after him, but that his kingdom should be transferred to Kerellus, his younger brother.

And wherefore should not all this fall to the Markmen and their valiancy?

Wherefore we most heartily provoke, challenge, and defy your Lordship to the said combat and monomachy, and have sent these letters by the hand of our well beloved and royal brother Edmund, sometime King under us in Narnia, Duke of Lantern Waste and Count of the Western March, Knight of the Noble Order of the Table, to whom we have given full power of determining with your Lordship all the conditions of the said battle.

Wherefore I pray you most venerable Fathers, to whom and every one of whom it doth appertain, to provide for the dignity and safety of the Commonweale, that you would in no wise suffer this wicked Homicide, embrued with the bloud of so many murthered citisens, to escape unpunished.

Wherefore under the old Law the sacrifice of peace-offerings was offered up for the salvation of the offerers, as is prescribed in the third chapter of Leviticus.

There was a certaine man in the court of the Emperour, which had many offices, and in great favour, who at last by the envy of divers persons, was banished away and compelled to forsake the court : his wife Platina, a woman of rare faith and singular shamefastnes having borne ten children to her husband, despised all worldly Pompe and delicacy, and determined to follow her husband, and to be partaker of his perils and danger, wherefore shee cut off her haire, disguised her selfe like a man, and tooke with her all her treasure, passing through the hands of the souldiers, and the naked swords without any feare, whereby she endured many miseries, and was partaker of much affliction, to save the life of her husband, such was her love which she bare unto him.

Then she tooke a great quantity of wheat, of barly, poppy seede, peason, lintles, and beanes, and mingled them altogether on a heape saying : Thou evil favoured girle, thou seemest unable to get the grace of thy lover, by no other meanes, but only by diligent and painefull service, wherefore I will prove what thou canst doe : see that thou separate all these graines one from another, disposing them orderly in their quantity, and let it be done before night.

Wherefore those sacraments by which a man is perfected in himself, are placed before the sacrament of order, in which a man is made a perfecter of others.

A man does not, however, incur ingratitude by committing a venial sin, because by sinning venially man does not act against God, but apart from Him, wherefore venial sins nowise cause the return of sins already forgiven.

When Psyches had heard these words she sighed sorrowfully and said, O deare husband this long time have you had experience and triall of my faith, and doubt you not that I will persever in the same, wherefore command your winde Zephyrus, that hee may doe as hee hath done before, to the intent that where you have charged me not to behold your venerable face, yet that I may comfort myself with the sight of my sisters.

Wherefore are we dispensed from seeking Him in any single place, being assured He is to be discovered neither more nor less in any one spot than in any other, and that you cannot find so much as a pair of old spatterdashes without their due share of Him.