what
Plural: whats
Det
- Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities.
- Which.
- Any ... that; all ... that; whatever.
- 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'.
- 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'.
- Used to form exclamations indicating that something is remarkable, in either a good or bad way.
Pron
- Which thing, event, circumstance, etc.: used in asking for the specification of an identity, quantity, quality, etc.
- That which; those that; the thing(s) that.
- Anything that; all that; whatever.
- That; which; who.
Adv
- In what way; to what extent.
- Used before a prepositional phrase to emphasise that something is taken into consideration as a cause or reason; usually used in combination with 'with' (see what with), and much less commonly with other prepositions.
Intj
- An expression of surprise or disbelief.
- What do you want? An abrupt, usually unfriendly enquiry as to what a person desires.
- Clipping of what do you say?, used as a type of tag question to emphasise a statement and invite agreement, often rhetorically.
- What did you say? I beg your pardon? This usage is often considered impolite, with the more polite "Pardon?" or "Excuse me?" preferred.
- Indicating a guess or approximation, or a pause to try to recall information.
Noun
- The true nature or essential quality of something.
- Something; thing; stuff.
- The identity of a thing, as an answer to a question of what.
- Something that is addressed by what, as opposed to a person, addressed by who.
Particle
- Emphasizes the truth of an assertion made to contradict an evidently false assumption held by the listener.
- Used to invite agreement or acknowledgment when something is assumed to be straightforward or already obvious to begin with; similar in function to “right?” and “as you know”.
- Used after a direct assertion to reinforce a disagreeing opinion.
Examples
- And, what's even worse, I have to work on Sunday too.
- Did you buy the groceries? — With what money? We barely have any left.
- He knows what he wants and what to do to get it.
- He seems to have lost what sense he had.
- I know what colour I am going to use.
- I must have been, what, about five years old.
- I will do what I can to help you.
- I wonder what colour he is going to use.
- If it doesn’t get sunlight, it won’t grow what, so you should consider moving it closer to the window.
- It must be, what, twenty-five years since we first met.
- It’s a nice day, what?
- That depends on what answer is received.
- The lava cakes are not that bad what.
- The WHAT of his strategy remained a mystery until the final turn.
- wait this song is so good whattt
- What beautiful children you have.
- What colour are you going to use?
- What do you care?
- What does it matter?
- What I'll do is, I'll phone you to let you know.
- What is amazing is his boundless energy.
- What is astonishing, she doesn't want the job. -What’s even more staggering, neither of her friends does either.
- What is mine is yours.
- What kind of car is that?
- What money I earn is soon spent.
- What nonsense!
- What time is it?
- What! That’s amazing!
- What? I'm busy.
- With what passion she sings!
- Wow! What a speech.
- — Could I have some of those aarrrrrr mmmm ... — What?
- — Sian sia, nearby here don’t have library. — The National Library is a five-minute walk from here what, no meh?
Origin / Etymology
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 contradictory particle in colloquial Singaporean and Malaysian English is analogous to 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.
Scrabble Score: 10
what: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordwhat: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
what: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary