Word definition: whom

Etimology


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”).

pronoun


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

(interrogative) What person or people; which person or people.

(relative) Used to refer to a previously mentioned person or people.

(fused relative, archaic outside set patterns) The person(s) whom; whomever.

Examples


Whom did you ask?

“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.”

To whom are you referring?

With whom were you talking?

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.

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.

“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.

That is the woman whom I spoke to earlier.

Mr Smith, whom we all know well, will be giving the speech.

He's a person with whom I work.

We have ten employees, half of whom are carpenters.

“Anthea hasn't a notion in her head but to vamp a lot of silly mugwumps. She's set her heart on that tennis bloke […] whom the papers are making such a fuss about.”

The eminent brain specialist to whom she alluded was a man I would not have cared to lunch with myself, our relations having been on the stiff side since the night at Lady Wickham's place in Hertfordshire when, acting on the advice of my hostess's daughter Roberta, I had punctured his hot-water bottle with a darning needle in the small hours of the morning. Quite unintentional, of course.

To whom it may concern, all business of John Smith Ltd. has now been transferred to Floggitt & Runne.

Data provided by Wiktionary