whys and wherefores

Idioms  

1. All the underlying causes and reasons, as in She went into the whys and wherefores of the adoption agency's rules and procedures. This idiom today is a redundancy since why and wherefore mean the same thing. Formerly, however, why indicated the reason for something and wherefore how it came to be. [c. 1600]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

whys and wherefores

Mescal doesn’t spell out the whys and wherefores of his character’s pain.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 23, 2023

It takes a while before kids interrogate the whys and wherefores of their family’s dynamics.

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2020

“If the book was so right for me, there were bound to be maybe thousands like me who really wanted to learn the whys and wherefores of good French cooking,” she wrote.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 2, 2017

I still don’t know all the whys and wherefores, but we failed.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 4, 2015

"The whys and wherefores cannot come within the Province of a Mineral Surveyor."

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

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