how
See also: How
English
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: hou, IPA(key): /haʊ/
- (New Zealand, General Australian) IPA(key): /hæŏ/
Audio (UK) (file) Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -aʊ
Etymology 1
Lua error: The template Template:PIE root does not use the parameter(s):2=kʷPlease see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English how, hou, hu, hwu, (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English hū, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *hwō, from the same root as hwæt (“who, what”). /hw/ > /h/ due to wh-cluster reduction in (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English; compare who, which underwent this change later, and thus is spelt wh ((deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English spelling of /hw/) but pronounced /h/ (it previously had a different vowel, hence avoided the spelling and sound change in Old English). Vowel change per Great Vowel Shift.
Akin to Scots hoo, foo (“how”), Saterland Frisian wo (“how”), West Frisian hoe (“how”), Low German ho, wo, wu (“how”), Dutch hoe (“how”), German wie (“how”), Swedish hur (“how”). See who and compare why.
Adverb
how (not comparable)
- (interrogative) To what degree.
- How often do you practice?
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:
- No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I would kindly wait.
- (interrogative) In what manner.
- How do you solve this puzzle? How else can we get this finished?
- 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
- Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. […] But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.
- (interrogative) In what state.
- How are you?
- How was your vacation?
- 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
- How's the new apartment? — The new apartment is great!
Audio (US) (file)
- How's the new apartment? — The new apartment is great!
- Used as a modifier to indicate surprise, delight, or other strong feelings in an exclamation.
- How very interesting! How wonderful it was to receive your invitation.
- 1973, “Yesterday Once More”, in Now & Then, performed by the Carpenters:
- Those were such happy times and not so long ago / How I wondered where they'd gone
Usage notes
- See usage notes on else (adverb).
- How good is it? means "To what extent is it good?", whereas How is it good? means "In what manner is it good?". Likewise, I know how good it is means "I know the extent to which it is good", whereas I know how it is good means "I know the manner in which it is good".
Derived terms
Translations
to what degree
|
in what manner
|
in what state
|
used as a modifier to indicate surprise, delight, or other strong feelings
|
Noun
how (plural hows)
- The means by which something is accomplished.
- I am not interested in the why, but in the how.
- 1924, Joseph Rickaby, Studies on God and His Creatures, page 102:
- It is an a posteriori argument, evincing the fact, but not the how.
- 2008 March 21, The New York Times, “Movie Guide and Film Series”, in New York Times[1]:
- A wham-bam caper flick, efficiently directed by Roger Donaldson, that fancifully revisits the mysterious whos and speculative hows of a 1971 London bank heist.
Conjunction
how
- In which way; in such way.
- I remember how to solve this puzzle.
- That, the fact that, the way that.
- 2010 April 24, Jesse McKinley, “Don’t Call It ‘Pot’ in This Circle; It’s a Profession”, in The New York Times, page A1:
- “There’s this real Al Capone fear that they’re going to get our guys, not on marijuana, but on something else,” Mr. Edson said, referring to how Capone was eventually charged with tax evasion rather than criminal activity.
- 2010 April 24, Jesse McKinley, “Don’t Call It ‘Pot’ in This Circle; It’s a Profession”, in The New York Times, page A1:
Translations
in which way
|
Etymology 2
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old Norse haugr.
Noun
how (plural hows)
- (dialectal) An artificial barrow or tumulus.
- (dialectal) A small hill in northern England. (Usage preserved mainly in place names.)
Etymology 3
From a (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Lua error in Module:parameters at line 95: Parameter 1 should be a valid language code; the value "sio" is not valid. See WT:LOL. language, compare Lakota háu. Alternatively from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Wyandot haau.
Alternative forms
Interjection
how
- A greeting, used in representations of Native American speech.
References
- “how”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “how”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “how”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams
Abau
Pronunciation
Noun
how
Alabama
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Pronunciation
Adverb
how
Synonyms
Lower Sorbian
Pronunciation
Adverb
how
Further reading
- Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “how”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
- Starosta, Manfred (1999) “how”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag
Categories:
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/aʊ
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English lemmas
- English adverbs
- English uncomparable adverbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- Hakka terms with non-redundant manual script codes
- Min Nan terms with redundant script codes
- Hakka terms with redundant script codes
- Min Nan terms with non-redundant manual script codes
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English conjunctions
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- English dialectal terms
- English terms derived from Wyandot
- English interjections
- English basic words
- English degree adverbs
- English interrogative adverbs
- Abau terms with IPA pronunciation
- Abau lemmas
- Abau nouns
- Alabama lemmas
- Alabama adverbs
- Lower Sorbian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Lower Sorbian lemmas
- Lower Sorbian adverbs