Anywhere

How to spell anywhere

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce anywhere

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anywhere mean?

1. adverbIn, at, or to any place at all.

Anywhere in a sentence

• The new keyboard works anywhere there is a free socket.

• She said she would happily live anywhere near the coast.

Where does anywhere come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, formed simply by joining 'any' with 'where'. The first part descends from the Old English ǣnig, meaning 'any' or 'one of', itself built on an (one); the second comes from Old English hwǣr, meaning 'in what place'. Speakers had long used the two words side by side before they fused into a single adverb, a process well established by the late Middle Ages. The spelling trap is purely mechanical: writers sometimes split it into 'any where' or double a letter, but it is now firmly one word with a single 'y' bridging into 'where'. It belongs to a tidy family of compounds (anyone, anything, anyway, somewhere, nowhere) that all behave the same way.

How the word is built

• any (from Old English ǣnig: any, one)
• where (from Old English hwǣr: in what place)