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whoever

UK/huˈɛvə/US/huˈɛvɚ/
pronounA2Very common — you will meet it every day · #847 of 15,258mostly spoken

Whoever means any person at all who does the thing. Whoever wants it, whoever they are, tell whoever answers.

It generalises: whoever wins covers every possible winner. Whoever takes the subject case and whomever the object, though whomever is nearly extinct and no listener will miss it. It also works as an exasperated dismissal — whoever. Note whatever and whenever, built with the same -ever.

Definitions of whoever

  1. 1pronounwhoeverAny person at all who does the thing.A2

    “Whoever broke the window must pay for it.”

whoever is a pronoun.

Where it comes from

Who plus -ever, a Middle English compound. Whatever, whenever and however are built the same way.

  1. Middle English

    whoever

  2. English, today

    whoever

From Middle English whoever. by surface analysis, who + -ever.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

whoever in the wild

  • Reputedly, whoever could untie it would be destined to rule all of Asia.

    Gordian Knot

  • However, Andvari had cursed the ring to bring misfortune and destruction to whoever else possessed it.

    Hreiðmarr

  • Specific types of prizes include: Booby prize: typically awarded as a joke or insult to whoever finished last (e.g., wooden spoon award).

    Prize

  • Hence, whoever leads the GC is generally regarded as the overall leader or winner of the race.

    General classification

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.