what
Language: English
Part of speech: det
Pronunciation: note: wine–whine merger
enpr: wŏt
homophone: Watt
homophone: watt
homophone: wot
ipa: /wɒt/
ipa: /wɔt/
note: Indic
ipa: /wʱɔʈ/
note: father-bother merger
enpr: wät
ipa: /wɑt/
ipa: /wɑt/
ipa: /wɜt/
note: Indic
ipa: /wʱɑʈ/
note: without the wine–whine merger
enpr: hwŏt
ipa: /ʍɒt/
note: without the wine–whine merger
note: wine–whine merger
enpr: wŭt
ipa: /wʌt/
note: wine–whine merger
note: as a particle;wine–whine merger
ipa: [wɐ(ː)t̚˨˩]
note: without the wine–whine merger
enpr: hwŭt
ipa: /ʍʌt/
note: without the wine–whine merger
ipa: /hɒt/
homophone: hot
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.
Senses: examples: text: What colour are you going to use?
text: What time is it?
text: What kind of car is that?
text: Did you buy the groceries? — With what money? We barely have any left.
text: Everyone always asks what my advice is, and my advice is don’t overintellectualize your art.
ref: 2022 October 14, Justin Curto, “The 1975’s Matty Healy Prefers Writing Lyrics He’s Afraid Of”, in Vulture, archived from the original on 18 Oct 2022:
glosses: Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities.
examples: text: I wonder what colour he is going to use.
text: I know what colour I am going to use.
text: That depends on what answer is received.
glosses: Which.
examples: text: He seems to have lost what sense he had.
text: What money I earn is soon spent.
text: He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his grey jacket.
ref: 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 40:
glosses: Any ... that; all ... that; whatever.
examples: text: This shows what beauty there is in nature.
text: You know what nonsense she talks.
text: I found out what a liar he is.
glosses: 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'.
examples: text: What nonsense!
text: Wow! What a speech.
text: What beautiful children you have.
text: With what passion she sings!
text: Little Red Riding Hood, traditional folk tale
“Oh Granny, what big eyes you have,” said Little Red Riding Hood.
glosses: 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.
synonyms: such