Somewhere

How to spell somewhere

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce somewhere

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does somewhere mean?

1. adverbIn, at, or to a place that is not specified or not exactly known.

Somewhere in a sentence

• She left her keys somewhere in the office and spent an hour searching.

• They wanted to retire somewhere warm and quiet near the coast.

Where does somewhere come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, built entirely from Old English elements rather than borrowed from abroad. The first part, 'some', descends from the Old English 'sum', meaning 'a certain one' or 'an unspecified amount', a word shared widely across the Germanic languages. The second part, 'where', comes from Old English 'hwær', which asked or pointed to a place, and is closely related to 'here' and 'there'. The two were joined to form a single adverb meaning 'in or to an unspecified place', and the compound was well established by the Middle English period. Because it is a transparent join of two everyday words, the spelling trap is simply remembering that it is written as one solid word, with no space and no 'e' lost between the parts: some plus where, kept whole.

How the word is built

• some (an unspecified quantity or one)
• where (in or at what place)