if and when

if and when

English

Conjunction

if and when

1. At the time of an event, contingent on that event happening at all.
   • 1819, ‎John Wilson, Cases in Chancery [1818-1819] page 90:

     [T]o his son Thomas Battersbee, if and when he should attain the age of 21; but if he should die under that age then to his daughter Sophia, if and when she should attain that age...

   • 1980, Louise Bates Ames, ‎Frances Lillian Ilg, Your Three-year-old: Friend Or Enemy, page 81:

     Since, as many parents have found to their sorrow, you cannot force a child to sleep, most find it easier on everybody to accept this nightwalking if and when it occurs

   • 2006, Dennis D. Riley, ‎Bryan E. Brophy-Baermann, Bureaucracy and the Policy Process: Keeping the Promises, page 318:

     Still, one cannot completely ignore the differences in the nature of the paper trail the two sets of rules give us if and when we want to look back at a particular decision.

See also

• if and only if