Whom
//huːm// pron, slang
pron, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Pronoun
- 1 What person or people; which person or people.; As the object of a verb. formal, interrogative
"Whom did you ask?"
- 2 Honorific alternative letter-case form of whom, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context. alt-of, honorific
- 3 What person or people; which person or people.; As the object of a preposition. formal, interrogative
"To whom are you referring?"
- 4 Used to refer to a previously mentioned person or people. formal, relative
"That is the woman whom I spoke to earlier. (defining)"
- 5 The person(s) whom; whomever. formal
"To whom it may concern, all business of John Smith Ltd. has now been transferred to Floggitt & Runne."
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- 6 Also used with names of collective nouns that are groups of people, especially singularly-named musical groups or sports teams. formal, informal
"Whom was Lemmy bassist for? Motörhead!"
Example
More examples"You don't marry someone you can live with — you marry the person whom you cannot live without."
Etymology
From Middle English whom, wham, from Old English hwām, hwǣm, from Proto-Germanic *hwammai, dative case of *hwaz (“who, what”). Cognate with Scots wham (“whom”), German wem (“whom, to whom”), Danish hvem (“who, whom”), Swedish vem (“who, whom”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.