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Origin and history of henceforward

henceforward(adv.)

late 14c., from hence + forward (adv.). Related: Henceforwards.

Entries linking to henceforward

Old English forewearde "toward the front, in front; toward the future; at the beginning;" see fore + -ward.

"(away) from here," late 13c., hennes, with adverbial genitive -s + Old English heonan "away, hence," from West Germanic *hin- (source also of Old Saxon hinan, Old High German hinnan, German hinnen), from PIE *ki-, variant of root *ko- "this," the stem of the demonstrative pronoun (see here).

The modern spelling (mid-15c.) is phonetic, to retain the breathy -s- (compare twice, once, since). Original "away from this place;" of time, "from this moment onward," late 14c.; meaning "from this (fact or circumstance)" first recorded 1580s. Wycliffe (1382) uses hennys & þennys for "from here and there, on both sides."

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