whys and wherefores

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Idioms and Phrases

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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April 20, 2024flabbergast

[flab-er-gast ]

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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