what
/wɔt/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 6.38 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
det
Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities.
det
Which.
det
Emphasises that something is noteworthy or remarkable in quality or degree, in either a good or bad way; may be used in combination with certain other determiners, especially 'a', less often 'some'.
det
Emphasises that something is noteworthy or remarkable in quality or degree, in either a good or bad way; may be used in combination with certain other determiners, especially 'a', less often 'some'.
pron
Which thing, event, circumstance, etc.: used in asking for the specification of an identity, quantity, quality, etc.
pron
That which; those that; the thing(s) that.
Example Sentences
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷ- Proto-Indo-European *kʷís Proto-Germanic *hwat Proto-West Germanic *hwat Old English hwæt Middle English what English what From Middle English what, from Old English hwæt (“what”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwat, from Proto-Germanic *hwat (“what”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷód (“what”), neuter form of *kʷós (“who”). Cognate with Scots what, whit (“what”), North Frisian wat (“what”), Saterland Frisian wat (“what”), West Frisian wat (“what”), Dutch wat (“what”), Low German wat (“what”), German was (“what”), Danish hvad (“what”), Norwegian Bokmål hva (“what”), Swedish vad (“what”), Norwegian Nynorsk kva (“what”), Icelandic hvað (“what”), Latin quod (“what, which”). Its use as a particle of contradiction or objection in colloquial Malaysian and Singaporean Englishes is analogous to Malay apa and Cantonese 喎 /㖞 (wo³, etymology 2, sense 3). It is possible that this was historically reinforced by the dated use of what as a sentence-final question tag in British English.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /wɔt/
- British English: /wɒt/
Usage
- British usage
- Colloquial
- Dated
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
- Countable