who

CEFRA1

/huː/

pronoun · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    pronoun

    Used to ask which person or people are meant.

  2. 02

    pronoun

    Extra detail

    Introduces a relative clause having a human antecedent., With antecedent as subject.

Examples

  • Every person who is alone is alone because they are afraid of others.

  • I don't have anyone who'd travel with me.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • [hʉː]
  • [hʊw]

Deep Dive

pronoun

Extra meanings

  1. What person or people; which person or people; asks for the identity of someone; used in a direct or indirect question.

  2. Introduces a relative clause having a human antecedent.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. A person under discussion; a question of which person.

More examples

In context

  • She treats the people who work for her as her equals.

  • Who says they care? —They themselves do.

  • I don't know who it is. (indirect question)

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The person blank stole my phone from the office is my next door neighbor.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

pronoun

From Middle English who, hwo, huo, wha, hwoa, hwa, from Old English hwā (dative hwām, genitive hwæs), from Proto-West Germanic *hwaʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷos, *kʷís. The sound change /hw/ > /h/ (without a corresponding change in spelling) was due to wh-cluster reduction after an irregular change of /ɑː/ to /oː/ in Middle English (instead of the expected /ɔː/) and further to /uː/ regularly in Early Modern English. A similar change occurred in two. Compare how, which underwent wh-reduction earlier (in Old English), and thus is spelt with h. Compare Scots wha, West Frisian wa, Dutch wie, Low German we, German wer, Swedish vem, Danish hvem, Norwegian Bokmål hve...