somehow
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Etymology tree
Pronunciation
[edit]Adverb
[edit]somehow (not comparable)
- In one way or another; in a way not yet known or explained; by some means
- This problem has to be tackled somehow.
- We don't know how he's still alive after the accident, but somehow he is.
- 1817, Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy[1]:
- Although youngest of the family, he has somehow or other got the entire management of all the others.
- 1895, William Dean Howells, Mortality:
- Have I not loathed to live again and said
It would have been far better to be dead,
And yet somehow, I know not why,
Remained afraid to die!
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.
- 2016 June 9, James Griffiths, “This is how the ‘Hobbits’ of Indonesia became so small”, in CNN[2], archived from the original on 11 April 2021:
- “The morphology of the fossil teeth also suggests that this human lineage represents a dwarfed descendant of early Homo erectus that somehow got marooned on the island of Flores,” Yousuke Kaifu, from Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science, said in a statement.
- 2016 December 1, Tom Donaghy, “The Tender Side of Edward Albee”, in The New York Times[3], archived from the original on 21 February 2020:
- It’s not by accident Edward wrote “The Goat,” “The Zoo Story” or “Seascape,” with its two lizards, Sarah and Leslie. In fact, in all of his plays the animal is pretty prominent, somehow or other.
Usage notes
[edit]Synonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]in one way or another; in some way not yet known or designated — see also in a way
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