Meaning

noun the cause or intention underlying an action or situation, especially in the phrase `the whys and wherefores'

originFrom Middle English why, from Old English hwȳ (“why”), from Proto-Germanic *hwī (“by what, how”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷey, instrumental case of *kʷís (“who”), *kʷid (“what”). Cognate with Old Saxon hwī (“why”), hwiu (“how; why”), Middle High German wiu (“how, why”), archaic Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hvi (“why”), Norwegian Nynorsk kvi (“why”), Swedish vi (“why”), Faroese and Icelandic hví…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0