different between who vs when

English

Etymology

From Middle English who, hwo, huo, wha, hwoa, hwa, from Old English hw? (dative hw?m, genitive hwæs), from Proto-Germanic *hwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *k?os, *k?is.

The sound change /hw/ > /h/ (without a corresponding change in spelling) due to wh-cluster reduction after an irregular change of /a?/ to /o?/ in Middle English (instead of the expected /??/) and further to /u?/ regularly in Early Modern English. Compare how, which underwent wh-reduction earlier (in Old English), and thus is spelt with h.

Compare Scots wha, West Frisian wa, Dutch wie, Low German we, German wer, Danish hvem, Norwegian Bokmål hvem, Norwegian Nynorsk kven, Icelandic hver.

Pronunciation

• enPR: ho?o, IPA^(key): /hu?/
• Rhymes: -u?

Pronoun

who (singular or plural, nominative case, objective whom, who, possessive whose)

1. (interrogative) What person or people; which person or people; asks for the identity of someone. (used in a direct or indirect question)

   Who is that? (direct question)

   I don't know who it is. (indirect question)

2. (interrogative) What is one's position; asks whether someone deserves to say or do something.

   I don't like what you did, but who am I to criticize you? I've done worse.

3. (relative) The person or people that.

   Her sister who worked here is an enemy of his.
4. (relative) Whoever, he who, they who.
   • 1603, William Shakespeare, Othello, act III, scene 3

     Who steals my purse steals trash.

   It was a nice man who helped us.

Usage notes

• Who is a subject pronoun. Whom is an object pronoun. To determine whether a particular sentence uses a subject or an object pronoun, rephrase it to use he/she or him/her instead of who, whom; if you use he or she, then you use the subject pronoun who; if you use him or her, then you use the object pronoun. The same rule applies to whoever and whomever.

• Who can also be used as an object pronoun, especially in informal writing and speech (hence one hears not only whom are you waiting for? but also who are you waiting for?), and whom may be seen as (overly) formal; in some dialects and contexts, it is hardly used, even in the most formal settings. As an exception to this, fronted prepositional phrases almost always use whom, e.g. one usually says with whom did you go?, not *with who did you go?. However, dialects in which whom is rarely used usually avoid fronting prepositional phrases in the first place (for example, using who did you go with?).

• The use of who as an object pronoun is proscribed by many authorities, but is frequent nonetheless. It is usually felt as much more acceptable than the converse hypercorrection in which whom is misused in place of who, as in *the gentleman whom spoke to me.

• For more information, see "who" and "whom" on Wikipedia.

• When “who” (or the other relative pronouns “that” and “which”) is used as the subject of a relative clause, the verb agrees with the antecedent of the pronoun. Thus “I who am...”, “He who is...”, “You who are...”, etc.
• Formerly sometimes with partitive of, where which is ordinarily used

Translations

Noun

who (plural whos)

1. A person under discussion; a question of which person.

Determiner

who

1. (interrogative, dialect, African-American Vernacular) whose

   Who phone just rang?

Anagrams

• How, how

Middle English

Alternative forms

• wha, hwoa, huo, hwo

Etymology

From Old English hw?, from Proto-West Germanic *hwa?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???/

Pronoun

who

1. who

Descendants

• English: who
  • Northumbrian: whee, wheea
• Scots: quha, quhay, wha
• Yola: fho

References

• “wh?, pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

English

Alternative forms

• wen (eye dialect)

Etymology

From Middle English when(ne), whanne, from Old English hwenne, hwænne, hwonne (“when”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwan, from Proto-Germanic *hwan (“at what time, when”), from Proto-Indo-European *k?is (“interrogative base”).

Cognate with Dutch wanneer (“when”) and wen (“when, if”), Low German wannehr (“when”), wann (“when”) and wenn (“if, when”), German wann (“when”) and wenn (“when, if”), Gothic ???????????? (?an, “when, how”), Latin quand? (“when”). More at who.

Interjection sense: a playful misunderstanding of "say when" (i.e. say something / speak up when you want me to stop) as "say [the word] when".

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: hw?n, w?n, IPA^(key): /??n/, /w?n/
  • (pin–pen merger) IPA^(key): /??n/, /w?n/
• (Ireland, Scotland) enPR: hw?n, IPA^(key): /??n/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: w?n, IPA^(key): /w?n/
• (in accents without the wine–whine merger)
• (in accents with the wine–whine merger)
• (in accents with the wine–whine merger)
• Rhymes: -?n
• Homophone: wen (in accents with the wine-whine merger), win (in accents with the wine–whine merger and the pin–pen merger)

Adverb

when (not comparable)

1. (interrogative) At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
   • 1834, Samuel Kirkham, English Grammar in Familiar Lectures, page 117:

     What words are used as interrogative pronouns? — Give examples.

     When are the words, what, which, and that, called adj. pron.?

     When are they called interrogative pronominal adjectives?

2. At an earlier time and under different, usually less favorable, circumstances.

3. (relative) At which, on which, during which: often omitted or replaced with that.

Translations

Conjunction

when

1. At (or as soon as) that time that; at the (or any and every) time that; if.
2. During the time that; at the time of the action of the following clause or participle phrase.
3. At what time; at which time.
   • 1839, John Donne, The Works of John Donne: Sermons, Letters, Poems, page 310:

     I am at London only to provide for Monday, when I shall use that favour which my Lady Bedford hath afforded me, of giving her name to my daughter; which I mention to you, […]

   • 1929, Donald John Munro, The Roaring Forties and After (page 38)

     He sat at the door of his kitchen watching, and seeing there was nothing else for it we buckled to and soon had the job done; when we were admitted to the kitchen and given a really good meal.

4. Since; given the fact that; considering that.

5. Whereas; although; at the same time as; in spite of the fact that.

Synonyms

• (as soon as): as soon as, immediately, once
• (every time that): whenever
• (during the time that): while, whilst; see also Thesaurus:while
• (at any time that): whenever
• (at which time):
• (given the fact that): given that, seeing that; see also Thesaurus:because
• (in spite of the fact that): but, where, whereas

Derived terms

• know someone when
• whenwe

Translations

Pronoun

when

1. (interrogative) What time; which time.
   • 1831 (published), John Davies, Orchestra Or, a Poem of Dancing, in Robert Southey, Select Works of the British Poets: From Chaucer to Jonson, with Biographical Sketches, page 706:

     Homer, to whom the Muses did carouse

     A great deep cup with heav'nly nectar fill'd,

     The greatest, deepest cup in Jove's great house,

     (For Jove himself had so expressly will'd)

     He drank off all, nor let one drop be spill'd;

     Since when, his brain that had before been dry,

     Became the well-spring of all poetry.

   • 1833, William Potts Dewees, A Treatise on the Diseases of Females, page 495:

     [This] we imagined might have been owing to some accidental condition of the system, or perhaps idiosyncracy; this led us to a second trial, but we experienced the same inconveniences, since when, we have altogether abandoned their use.

   • 2012, Emile Letournel, Robert Judet, Fractures of the Acetabulum, Springer Science & Business Media (?ISBN), page 385:

     So we combined the Kocher-Langenbeck and iliofemoral approach until 1965, since when we have combined the ilioinguinal and Kocher-Langenbeck approaches.

2. The time that.

Translations

Noun

when (plural whens)

1. The time at which something happens.
   • 2008, Paolo Aite, Lanscapes of the Psyche, Ipoc Press (?ISBN), page 151:

     For the moment, suffice it to say that the stories told through the whens and hows of building a scene differentiate individual desires and needs more clearly than shared speech was up to then able to communicate.

Translations

Interjection

when

1. (often humorous) That's enough, a command to stop adding something, especially an ingredient of food or drink -- referring to say when.
2. (obsolete) Expressing impatience. (Compare what.)
   • c. 1600, Sir John Oldcastle, iv. 1:

     Set, parson, set; the dice die in my hand.

     When, parson, when! what, can you find no more?

   • c. 1615-1657, Thomas Middleton, More Dissemblers Besides Women, volume 1:

     Why, when? begin, sir: I must stay your leisure.

Translations

Derived terms

• whenever

See also

• since when

References

• when at OneLook Dictionary Search
• when in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• hewn

Middle English

Etymology 1

Adverb

when

1. Alternative form of whenne

Conjunction

when

1. Alternative form of whenne

Etymology 2

Verb

when

1. Alternative form of winnen (“to win”)