Word definition: whose

Etimology


From Middle English whos, from Old English hwæs, from Proto-Germanic *hwes, genitive case of *hwaz (“who”) *hwat (“what”).

determiner


whose

(interrogative) Of whom, belonging to whom; which person's or people's.

(relative) Of whom, belonging to whom.

(relative) Of which, belonging to which.

Examples


Whose wallet is this?

This is the man whose dog caused the accident.

Venus, whose sister Serena is, won the latest championship.

Pat and Lou, whose house we visited last year

The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. […] Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?

We saw several houses whose roofs were falling off.

pronoun


whose

(interrogative) That or those of whom or belonging to whom.

(relative) That or those of whom or belonging to whom.

Examples


Several people have lost their suitcases. Whose have you found?

This car is blocking the way, but Mr Smith, whose it is, will be here shortly.

For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,

If he starts it on another man's lands, and kills it there, it belongs to the owner of the land; but if he start game on one man's lands, and pursue it to those of another, and kill it there, it is neither the property of the man on whose lands it is started, nor of him on whose it is killed, but belongs to the killer.

The notes on authors are extremely brilliant and incisive, not always in good perspective and sometimes freaky in their wit, as, for instance, the reference to Mrs. Holmes, of whose books it is said, "The secret of their long popularity has never been divulged by their readers," and Mrs. Harris, of whose it is said, "To a lively mind they should be conducive of profound sleep," which, whatever its faults, is by no means true of "Rutledge."

Data provided by Wiktionary