Thereof

How to spell thereof

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce thereof

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does thereof mean?

1. adverbOf that or of it; relating to the thing just mentioned.

Thereof in a sentence

• The contract and all amendments thereof are held in the company safe.

• She inherited the estate and the income arising thereof.

Where does thereof come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Thereof is a native English compound that goes straight back to Old English, where the adverb of place 'thær' (there) was joined to the preposition 'of' to give a single word meaning 'of that' or 'of it'. This pattern of welding 'there' to a following preposition was once extremely common in the language, producing a whole family of words such as thereby, therein, thereto, therewith and thereafter, each a tidy substitute for 'of that', 'in that', and so on. Over the centuries most of these forms drifted out of ordinary speech, but thereof clung on in legal, contractual and biblical writing, where precision and economy were prized. The spelling holds no surprises once you see that it is simply the two familiar words 'there' and 'of' run together, with no extra letters and no doubling. Because it is built from two everyday words, the only real trap is remembering that it is written solid as one word rather than as 'there of'.

How the word is built

• there (that, that thing)
• of (of, from)