/wɛns/
[adverb] From what place, source, or origin; used to ask or state where something comes from. For example, 'the land whence they came' means 'the land from which they came.'
Saying 'from whence' is technically a double negative of origin — 'whence' already means 'from where', making 'from' redundant.
The word 'whence' stretches back to the very roots of the English language, finding its earliest form in Old English as 'hwanone' or 'hwanan', meaning 'from what place.' This Old English form belonged to a family of question words — the 'hw-' words — that included 'hwær' (where), 'hwæt' (what), and 'hwonne' (when). All of these descended from the Proto-Germanic root *hwa-, which itself came from the Proto-Indo-European root *kwo-, a fundamental building block of question-forming words across dozens of languages.
As English moved through the Middle English period, roughly from the 11th to the 15th centuries, 'hwanan' gradually softened and shifted. The '-an' ending, which had originally indicated direction or origin, was replaced by the suffix '-es', a common Middle English way of forming adverbs. This gave the language 'hwennes' and eventually 'whennes', before the final 'e' fell away to leave 'whence'. The '-ce' ending, pronounced with an 's' sound, was the same process that turned 'hence' from 'heonan' and 'thence' from 'þonan' — all three words once formed a neat trio meaning 'from here', 'from there', and 'from where.'
When 'whence' was commonly used — from the 13th century through to roughly the 18th century — it was entirely unremarkable. Writers used it as naturally as we might say 'where from' today. It appeared in the King James Bible of 1611, in Shakespeare, and in Milton's Paradise Lost, where questions of origin and return were deeply important: 'Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?' Satan is asked. The word carried both a practical and a philosophical weight, perfectly suited to questions about origins, journeys, and belonging.
The famous phrase 'from whence', which grammarians have long criticised as redundant — since 'whence' already contains the idea of 'from' — has actually been used by some of the greatest writers in the English language, including the King James Bible translators, Shakespeare, and Dickens. Language purists point out that saying 'from whence' is like saying 'from from where', but the truth is that ordinary speakers felt the 'from' was needed for clarity or rhythm, and great writers agreed. This is a perfect example of how grammar rules sometimes follow usage rather than logic.
By the 19th and 20th centuries, 'whence' began its slow retreat from everyday speech. As English simplified its formal question structures, people found it easier and more natural to say 'where from' or 'where it came from.' Today, 'whence' survives mainly in literature, formal writing, legal documents, and deliberate archaism — the kind of word a writer reaches for when they want to give a sentence a sense of age, gravity, or poetry. Its disappearance from casual conversation is not a sign of the language getting worse; it is simply the normal tide of change that all living languages experience.