# how

Pronunciation: say "HOW" /haʊ/

## Adverb

1. In what way or manner, or by what means or method, in direct and indirect questions; often with to.
   - Simple: In what way, or using what method.
   - _Do you know how to change a tire?_
   - _How can we reach them without a phone?_
2. To what degree or extent, before an adjective or adverb.
   - Simple: To what degree? Used before words like 'often', 'big' or 'soon'.
   - _How far is the station from here?_
   - _Nobody knew how long the strike would last._
3. In what state or condition, especially regarding well-being or circumstances.
   - Simple: In what state? Used to ask about someone's health or a situation.
   - _How is your mother these days?_
   - _How's the job going?_
5. Used in exclamations before an adjective, adverb or clause to express surprise, delight or other strong feeling.
   - Simple: Used at the start of an exclamation, as in 'how lovely!'.
   - _How quickly the summer went!_
   - _How I miss the old house._
6. With overtones of 'why', for what reason ('how should I know whether he likes raisins? Ask him!'), usually a rhetorical protest.
   - Simple: Used like 'why', as in 'how should I know?'.
   - _How can they charge so much for a coffee?_
   - _How was I to know the shop was shut?_
7. In the way that, or in whatever way, introducing a clause ('that's how it works'; 'people should be free to live how they want').
   - Simple: The way that, or any way that, as in 'do it how I showed you'.
   - _Arrange the chairs how you please._
   - _Spend the money how you see fit._

## Conjunction

4. Used to introduce a clause, meaning that or the fact that. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Used to mean 'that' or 'the fact that', as in 'she told me how her dad was a doctor'.
   - _Remember how we used to go there every summer?_
   - _I read how the bridge is closing for repairs._

## Noun

8. The means by which something is done ('not interested in the why, but in the how'; 'evincing the fact, but not the how'); plural 'hows'.
   - Simple: The way something is done, as in 'the why and the how'.
   - _The report covers the what, the when and the how._
   - _Engineers love the hows more than the whys._

## Interjection

9. A greeting used in representations of Native American speech, chiefly in westerns and old fiction, from a Siouan word (compare Lakota háu).
   - Simple: A greeting put in the mouths of Native Americans in old films and books.
   - _The comic-strip warrior says 'how' in every panel._
   - _In many old westerns, an actor playing a chief raises one palm and says 'how'._

## Other meanings

- (adverb) At what price, for how much money ('How a score of ewes now?': 'a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds'), an old market idiom.
- (adverb) By what name or title ('How art thou called? Thy name make known'), an older and literary way of asking a name.
- (noun) A low hill or rounded rise, including an ancient burial mound.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–8** — This comes from Middle English "how," from Old English "hū," going back to Proto-Germanic "*hwō" ("through what, how"), from the same root as the word behind "what." It is related to Dutch "hoe," German "wie," and Swedish "hur," and is connected to "who."
**Meaning 9** — The greeting is traced to a Siouan language, with Lakota háu as a comparison. Wyandot haau is a possible alternative source.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/how (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).