WHO • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of WHO

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/hu/ Listen

pronoun

Who pron. (nominative who, possessive whose, objective whom)

Originally, an interrogative pronoun, later, a relative pronoun also; used always substantively, and either as singular or plural. See the Note under What, pron., 1. As interrogative pronouns, who and whom ask the question: What or which person or persons? Who and whom, as relative pronouns (in the sense of that), are properly used of persons (corresponding to which, as applied to things), but are sometimes, less properly and now rarely, used of animals, plants, etc. Who and whom, as compound relatives, are also used especially of persons, meaning the person that; the persons that; the one that; whosoever. "Let who will be President." "(He) should not tell whose children they were." "There thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire; Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan." "Adders who with cloven tongues Do hiss into madness." "Whom I could pity thus forlorn." "How hard is our fate, who serve in the state." "Who cheapens life, abates the fear of death." "The brace of large greyhounds, who were the companions of his sports."

One; any; one. (Obs., except in the archaic phrase, as who should say.) "As who should say, it were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be found wiser than his forefathers were."

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Etymology of 'WHO'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Who" Quotes from Famous Books

... she said, laying down her fork and spoon, "that's good. I feel awfully grown-up, having had a proposal. When real girls ask me now how many I've had, I shall be able to say One. But I met a girl the other day who had had six. She had six photographs, but she called them scalps. If you would give me your photograph I could label it A Scalp, and hang it in the Shop. That would ...

— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... and long sofas. A big fire blazing on the open hearth. Perhaps, if we are very lucky we may have some old logs from long since foundered ships, that will flame blue and rose and green. He must indeed be of a poor spirit who cannot call all sorts of visions from such ...

— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... anything like an ecclesiastical history of this period, it is very clear, from occasional hints thrown out by the early apologists and controversialists, that the progress of the Church must have been both extensive and rapid. A Christian author, who flourished about the middle of the second century, asserts that there was then "no race of men, whether of barbarians or of Greeks, or bearing any other name, either because they lived in waggons without fixed habitations, or in tents leading a pastoral life, ...

— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... Castle in Cumberland has its "Radiant Boy"; whilst Mrs E. M. Ward has stated, in her reminiscences, that a certain room at Knebworth was once haunted by the phantasm of a boy with long yellow hair, called "The Yellow Boy," who never appeared to anyone in it, unless they were to die a violent death, the manner of which death he indicated by a series ...

— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... Alan and Carr talking together again. Suddenly she remembered. It had been that afternoon when they went to Big Run. The two men had spoken of Mrs. Murray, remarking that she was in town. It had been Alan who had said on the ...

— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

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