## Etymology
From Middle English whennes, from earlier whenne (Old English hwanon, 'from where') + adverbial genitive -s, from the interrogative stem hwā ('who, what').

## AI Etymology
whence comes from Middle English whennes, from earlier whenne (Old English hwanon, 'from where') + adverbial genitive -s, from the interrogative stem hwā ('who, what'). Morphologically, the word is transparent as a compound: its parts remain visible in the modern spelling, while the older history of those parts supplies the deeper ancestry. In modern use, the adverb sense is "from what place or source", which keeps the etymology connected to the word's present dictionary value rather than treating it as a merely historical label. The wider word family includes related English forms such as where, whither, hence, thence, showing how the same base continues to support neighboring English vocabulary. The principal historical forms in the chain include Old English hwanon, Proto-Indo-European *kʷo-, which anchor the explanation in named linguistic material.

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