elsewhen

English

WOTD – 9 April 2020

Etymology

From Middle English ellys whan; corresponding with else +‎ when.^[1]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɛlsʍɛn/, /ɛlsˈʍɛn/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɛlsʍɛn/, /ɛlsˈʍɛn/, /-wɛn/, /-ˈwɛn/
Hyphenation: else‧when

Adverb

elsewhen (not comparable)

(archaic) At some other time or times; somewhen else.
- 1552 July 22, Roger Ascham, [John Allen] Giles, “CXXXIX.—To Sir W[illiam] Cecil, (E, 7: and M, 1). Mostly about Sir John Cheke’s Recovery from Sickness. Villach July 12, 1552 [Julian calendar].”, in The Whole Works of Roger Ascham, Now First Collected and Revised, with a Life of the Author; by the Rev. Dr. Giles (Library of Old Authors), volumes I, part I (Life, &c., and Letters), London: John Russell Smith, […], published 1865, →OCLC, page 330:
  And thus for this time I will take my leave of your mastership, purposing elsewhen to trouble you with the talk of longer letters, if I may learn that your gentleness will warrant my boldness therein.
- 1563, John Foxe, “The Order of the Imprisonment and Tragical Handling of Alice Benden, Wife of Edward Benden, of the Parish of Staplehurst, in the County of Kent; for the Testimony of Christ’s Gospel”, in Josiah Pratt, editor, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe. […] (The Church Historians of England. Reformation Period.; volume VIII, part I), London: George Seeley, […], published 1868, →OCLC, book XII, page 326:
  On the Saturday following, her [Alice Benden's] husband [Edward Benden] willed her to go to church; which she both then and elsewhen refused to go.
- 1854, Virgil, “The First Georgic”, in W[illiam] Sewell, transl., The Georgics of Virgil, Literally and Rhythmically Translated, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: J. H. Parker, →OCLC, pages 20–21:
  Never, elsewhen, from heaven when all serene / Fell there more levin-bolts; nor flamed so oft / Comets with curses fraught.
- 1955, J[ohn] L[angshaw] Austin, “Lecture V”, in J[ames] O[pie] Urmson, Marina Sibsà, editors, How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955, 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Clarendon Press, published 1975, →OCLC, page 64; republished Oxford, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2011, →ISBN, page 64:
  The first person singular present indicative active may be used in a way similar to the 'historic' present. It may be used to describe my own performances elsewhere and elsewhen: [...]
- 1992, George Slusser, “Introduction: Fiction as Information”, in George Slusser, Tom Shippey, editors, Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative, Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 3:
  For it can be argued that what SF [science fiction] calls the future—its quest for alien contacts and worlds elsewhere and elsewhen—is an infosphere.
- 1994, Graham Nerlich, Andrew Westwell-Roper, “What Ontology Can Be About”, in Graham Nerlich, What Spacetime Explains: Metaphysical Essays on Space and Time, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Ontology and Methodology in Relativity), section 5 (Studying Structure), page 55:
  Any spacetime point in this boundary, which is distinct from the origin point, is both elsewhere and elsewhen from it. There are no privileged directions in the elsewhere or the elsewhen.

Related terms

References

^ “† elsewhen, adv.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891.

Anagrams

enwheels

[1] “† elsewhen, adv.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891.

[1]