thence

adv — 3 senses

thence

adv

/ðɛns/

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.

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).
4 more examples
  • And from thence he went agaynſt yͤ inhabiters of Debir (but Debir was called Kiriath Sepher afoꝛetyme.)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:
  • 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.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:
  • 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.1965, James Cameron, “On the Way”, in Here is Your Enemy, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 16–17:
  • From this we can find the characteristic roots b#95;1 and b#95;2 and thence proceed to the remaining steps of the solution process.2005, Alpha Chiang, Kevin Wainwright, Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics, 4th edition, McGraw-Hill International, page 605:
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
thenceafter, thence after, thenceforth, thenceforward, thenceforwards, thencefrom
Related terms
hence, whence

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.