when
adverb · noun
Simple meaning
At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wehnIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɛn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adverb
interrogative
At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
relativefused relative
The time at, on or during which.
relative
At which, on which, during which: often omitted or replaced with that.
relativeinformalin definitions or explanations
A circumstance or situation in which.
At an earlier time and under different, usually less favorable, circumstances.
noun
The time at which something happens.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (interrogative) At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
Used this way, when is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use when
- “Do you know when they arrived?”adverb
- “That was the day when the Twin Towers fell.”adverb
- “A good article will cover the who, the what, the when, the where, the why and the how.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
As a first impression.
At the appropriate time.
Never except when.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.