Whan

Part of speech: conjunction, adverb

Definitions

1. At what point in time ; at any time that
2. At which moment ; whenever or every time that
3. At what hour or when ; during the period that

Etymology: Geoffrey Chaucer opened "The Canterbury Tales", written in the 1380s and 1390s, with "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote," and to his readers "whan" was simply the ordinary spelling of "when." It is the same word, not a separate one. Old English had "hwænne" and "hwanne," used to ask about or refer to time, and these developed into Middle English "whanne" and "whan" before the modern spelling "when" became standard. The root is the Germanic interrogative stem that also gave English "who," "what," "where," and "why." The "wh" spelling, like the others in that group, reflects an older initial sound that English gradually lost, though Scots kept "whan" in use into modern times.