Whence, according to its conventional definition, means from where, so the phrase from whence is technically redundant. But this doesn’t stop people from using from whence. When hearing the sentence Whence came you?, one may feel something is missing—specifically, a preposition—even though the sentence is technically correct. That’s why from whence is so often used instead of whence alone. What often happens is a modern writer wishes to add a literary flourish but ends up treating whence the same as where or which—for example:
Without warning, he dissolves into the blackness from whence he came . . . [Backstage]
The tide changed, returned to from whence it came, and is rising. [CounterPunch]
What made the horror of Kittel’s antisemitism is not just the words but from whence the words came. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Of course, redundancy hasn’t stopped great writers from using from whence for centuries—for example:
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part; [Shakespeare]
From whence it follows, that where the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced. [Thomas Hobbes]
Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to-day. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
Other resources
“From whence” at World Wide Words
“The Whence Offense” at Columbia Journalism Review
