WordCodex

whom

See also: who'm

whom - English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /huːm/

Pronoun

whom (the singular and plural objective case of who) (formal)

  1. (interrogative) What person or people; which person or people.
    1. As the object of a verb.
      • Whom did you ask?
    2. As the object of a preposition.
      • To whom are you referring?
      • With whom were you talking?
  2. (relative) Used to refer to a previously mentioned person or people.
    • That is the woman whom I spoke to earlier. (defining)
    • Mr Smith, whom we all know well, will be giving the speech. (non-defining)
    • He's a person with whom I work. (defining)
    • We have ten employees, half of whom are carpenters. (non-defining)
  3. (fused relative, archaic outside set patterns) The person(s) whom; whomever.
    • To whom it may concern, all business of John Smith Ltd. has now been transferred to Floggitt & Runne.

Usage notes

  • Who is a subject pronoun. Whom is an object pronoun. To determine whether a particular sentence uses a subject or an object pronoun, rephrase it to use he/she/they or him/her/them instead of who, whom; if you use he, she or they, then you use the subject pronoun who; if you use him, her or them, then you use the object pronoun. The same rule applies to whoever/whosoever/whoso and whomever/whomsoever/whomso.
  • Who can also be used as an object pronoun, especially in informal writing and speech (hence one hears not only whom are you waiting for? but also who are you waiting for?), and whom may be seen as (overly) formal; in some dialects and contexts, it is hardly used, even in the most formal settings. As an exception to this, fronted prepositional phrases almost always use whom, e.g. one usually says with whom did you go?, not *with who did you go?. However, dialects in which whom is rarely used usually avoid fronting prepositional phrases in the first place (for example, using who did you go with?).
  • The use of who as an object pronoun is proscribed by many authorities, but is frequent nonetheless. It is usually felt to be much more acceptable than the converse hypercorrection in which whom is misused in place of who, as in *the savage whom spoke to me.
  • For more information, see "who" and "whom" on Wikipedia.

Subject (always who):

  • Who ate my sandwich?
  • There is the thief who ate my sandwich.
    • i.e. The thief ate my sandwich.

Direct object:

  • Who(m) did you see?
  • I saw an old friend who(m) I had not seen for years.
    • i.e. I saw an old friend.

Indirect object:

  • Who(m) are you giving your apple to?
  • She is the angel who(m) I'm giving my apple to.
    • or
  • To whom are you giving your apple? (fronted prepositional phrase, almost always whom)
  • She is the angel to whom I'm giving my apple.
    • i.e. I'm giving my apple to her.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

whom - Middle English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ʍɔːm/, /ʍoːm/, /ʍam/
  • (northern or early) IPA: /ʍɑːm/

Pronoun

whom (singular or plural, accusative and dative case, nominative who)

  1. (interrogative) (to) who, whom (accusative or dative)
  2. (relative) (to) who, whom (accusative or dative)
  3. (relative) (to) whoever, whomever (accusative or dative)
  4. (relative, uncommon) that (accusative, inanimate)
  5. (indefinite, rare) (to) anyone, someone (usually accusative or dative)

Descendants

Meaning and Definition of whom
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