Who vs. What: Know the Difference

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

Which one or ones of several or many

(relative) Introduces a relative clause having a human antecedent.

Whatever

With antecedent as subject.

How great; how astonishing

(non-formal) With antecedent as object: whom.

How much; in what respect; how

Whoever, he who, they who.

That

A person under discussion; a question of which person.

Used to express surprise, incredulity, or other strong and sudden excitement.

Whose

Chiefly British Used as a tag question, often to solicit agreement.

One; any; one.

(interrogative) Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities.

A United Nations agency to coordinate international health activities and to help governments improve health services

(relative) Which; the ... that.

(relative) 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'.

Used to form exclamations.

(interrogative) Which thing, event, circumstance, etc.: used in asking for the specification of an identity, quantity, quality, etc.

(fused relative) That which; those that; the thing(s) that.

(fused relative) Anything that; all that; whatever.

That; which; who.

(interrogative) 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.

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?

Indicating a guess or approximation, or a pause to try to recall information.

Something; thing; stuff.

(countable) The identity of a thing, as an answer to a question of what.

(countable) Something that is addressed by what, as opposed to a person, addressed by who.

As an interrogative pronoun, used in asking questions regarding either persons or things; as, what is this? what did you say? what poem is this? what child is lost?

As an exclamatory word: - (a) Used absolutely or independently; - often with a question following.

Used adjectively, meaning how remarkable, or how great; as, what folly! what eloquence! what courage!

As a relative pronoun

Sometimes prefixed to adjectives in an adverbial sense, as nearly equivalent to how; as, what happy boys!

Used substantively with the antecedent suppressed, equivalent to that which, or those [persons] who, or those [things] which; - called a compound relative.

Whatever; whatsoever; what thing soever; - used indefinitely.

Used adjectively, equivalent to the . . . which; the sort or kind of . . . which; rarely, the . . . on, or at, which.

Used adverbially, in part; partly; somewhat; - with a following preposition, especially, with, and commonly with repetition.

Used adverbially in a sense corresponding to the adjectival use; as, he picked what good fruit he saw.

Why? For what purpose? On what account?

Something; thing; stuff.