Whoso

pron

pron ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Pronoun
  1. 1
    whosoever, whatever person archaic

    "Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein."

Example

More examples

"Whoso wishes to touch him let him beware, for he will have to do with me!"

Etymology

From Middle English hoe so, hoo so, hoo-so, hos, hose, ho so, ho-so, hwao-se, hwa se, hwase, hwa swa, hwo se, hwo so, oso, qhooso, qua sa, qua-so, quo so, quo-so, quuo-so, qwa se, wah-swa, wea swa, whas, whasa, whase, wha so, wha-so, wha sua, wha swa, wha-swa, whoo so, whos, whose, who so, who-so, whoso, wos, wo-se, wose, wo so, woso, wua sua, from Old English hwā swā; equivalent to who + so.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.