whatever

UK/ʍɒtˈɛv.ə/US/wʌtˈɛv.ɚ/

adverbA22 meanings One of the most common words in English · #191 of 15,258mostly spoken

Whatever means no matter what, or anything at all. Whatever happens, whatever you like, whatever the cost.

It introduces a clause meaning it makes no difference: whatever he says, I am going. It also means anything of a kind: take whatever you need. On its own, whatever is a dismissive reply meaning I do not care and this conversation is over — which is one of the most efficient and most annoying words in English. Note whatsoever, which is an emphatic form used after a negative: no evidence whatsoever.

Definitions of whatever

1adverbwhateverNo matter what.A2~2%
“Whatever happens, I'll always be your friend.”
2adverbanythingAnything at all of a kind.B1~98%
“Take whatever you need and leave the rest.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

whatever is a word of indifference or inclusion.

Where it comes from

Middle English
whatever
English, today
whatever

From Middle English whatever. by surface analysis, what + -ever.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

whatever in the wild

"Yetzirah" as in "formation" is as opposed to "Beriah" as in "creation": actually taking whatever matter that was created in "Beriah" and shaping it into the basic elements.
Yetzirah
Both hands are used to hold whatever is being cut and move it against the blade.
Boti
The Court instructed the jury that whatever amount they awarded could be paid with legal tender notes of the United States.
Knox v. Lee
The opposite is a whitelist, allowlist, or passlist, in which only items on the list are let through whatever gate is being used.
Blacklist (computing)
British and Canadian accounts of the War give the impression of a modest, well-liked and generous officer, who gave whatever help he could to other commanders.
John Vincent (British Army officer)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Definitions of whatever

1adverbwhateverNo matter what.A2~2%

“Whatever happens, I'll always be your friend.”

2adverbanythingAnything at all of a kind.B1~98%

“Take whatever you need and leave the rest.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

whatever is a word of indifference or inclusion.