"somehow or other" meaning in English

See somehow or other in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adverb

Forms: somehow or another [alternative], somehow or the other [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-adv|-}} somehow or other (not comparable)
  1. One way or another; by some (mysterious) means. Tags: not-comparable
    Sense id: en-somehow_or_other-en-adv-md1C8cKL Categories (other): English coordinated pairs, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "somehow or another",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "somehow or the other",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "somehow or other (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              0,
              16
            ]
          ],
          "text": "Somehow or other they managed to get that grand piano upstairs.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One way or another; by some (mysterious) means."
      ],
      "id": "en-somehow_or_other-en-adv-md1C8cKL",
      "links": [
        [
          "One way or another",
          "one way or another#English"
        ],
        [
          "mysterious",
          "mysterious"
        ],
        [
          "means",
          "means"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "somehow or other"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "somehow or another",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "somehow or the other",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "somehow or other (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adverbs",
        "English coordinated pairs",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English uncomparable adverbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              0,
              16
            ]
          ],
          "text": "Somehow or other they managed to get that grand piano upstairs.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One way or another; by some (mysterious) means."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "One way or another",
          "one way or another#English"
        ],
        [
          "mysterious",
          "mysterious"
        ],
        [
          "means",
          "means"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "somehow or other"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.