whom

CEFRB1

/huːm/

pronoun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
pronoun
Used instead of who as the object of a verb or preposition.
02
pronoun
Extra detail
Used to refer to a previously mentioned person or people.

Examples

For whom will you vote for president?
It is Tom whom I want to see.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5

Also pronounced

/h(w)ɔːm/
/h(w)uːm/

Deep Dive

pronoun

Extra meanings

What person or people; which person or people.
As the object of a verb.
As the object of a preposition.

More examples

In context

Whom are you speaking of?
To whom are you referring?
With whom were you talking?

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The woman blank I met yesterday is my very new English teacher.

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

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
“Oh?” she said. “So you have decided to revise my guest list for me? You have the nerve, the – the –” I saw she needed helping out. “Audacity,” I said, throwing her the line. “The audacity to dictate to me who I shall have in my house.” It should have been “whom”, but I let it go. “You have the –” “Crust.” “– the immortal rind,” she amended, and I had to admit it was stronger, “to tell me whom” – she got it right that time – “I may entertain at Brinkley Court and who” – wrong again – “I may not.”
1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
He read the letter aloud. Sophia listened with the studied air of one for whom, even in these days, a title possessed some surreptitious allurement.
1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC
“A very hearty pip-pip to you, old ancestor,” I said, well pleased, for she is a woman with whom it is always a privilege to chew the fat. “And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,” she replied cordially.
1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter I, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
The principal economic activity is copra production, the Government copra plantation covering some 5,170 ha. The population in 1989 was estimated at 2,000, the great majority of whom live in London, Banana and Poland villages in the west.
1993, “A DIRECTORY OF WETLANDS IN OCEANIA”, in Wetlands International, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2018, page 188

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Origin

pronoun

From Middle English whom, wham, from Old English hwām, hwǣm, from Proto-Germanic *hwammai, dative case of *hwaz (“who, what”). Cognate with Scots wham (“whom”), German wem (“whom, to whom”), Danish hvem (“who, whom”), Swedish vem (“who, whom”).

Deep Dive

pronoun

More examples

Quick test

The woman blank— I met yesterday is my very new English teacher.

Nearby

Origin

pronoun

The woman blank I met yesterday is my very new English teacher.