English Words: W

12,113 words · Page 140 of 243

whotadj

Obsolete form of hot.

whottadj

Obsolete spelling of hot.

Whottonname

A surname.

Whoviannoun

A fan of the British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who.

WHRnoun

Initialism of waist-hip ratio.

whrrintj

A whirring sound.

whudverb

To whisk; to fly hastily.

whuddupintj

what's up? (as a greeting)

whuffnoun

A blowing or puffing noise.

whuffienoun

A type of social capital or reputation, especially within an online community.

whuffleverb

To make a low snuffling or blowing sound.

whufflingverb

present participle and gerund of whuffle

whufflyadj

Having a whuffling sound.

whuffoadv

Pronunciation spelling of what for.

whumpnoun

A soft thumping sound.

whumpagenoun

Alternative form of whompage.

whumpfintj

A dull, soft sound as of something hollow collapsing.

whupverb

Alternative form of whoop (“to whip, thrash, or defeat”).

whuppingnoun

A beating.

whurlverb

To make any of various throaty sounds (as a roar, snarl, or purr)

whurryverb

To scurry or hurry.

whushverb

Alternative form of whoosh (“make a breathy sound”).

whusscontraction

Pronunciation spelling of what's, representing African-American Vernacular English.

whuzzatcontraction

Alternative form of wassat.

whyadv

For what cause, reason, or purpose.

why and whereforenoun

A full and complete explanation.

why buy the cow when you can get the milk for freeproverb

Do not expect somebody to make a costly commitment if it will give them nothing they do not already have; used especially as a warning against having sexual intercourse before marriage (or conversely, as encouragement against getting married).

why comeadv

Synonym of how come (“why”).

why foradv

What for; for what reason; why.

why God inventedphrase

The reason for something (specified) existing; the purpose fulfilled by something.

why in God's nameintj

used to add emphasis to "why" when beginning question.

why in the worldintj

used to add emphasis to “why” in a question.

why is the ocean near the shorephrase

A rhetorical question in response to a question having an obvious answer.

why mephrase

An expression of surprise, annoyance, or disgust to question why something bad has happened to the speaker.

why notadv

Why is that so? (for a negative statement)

why not Zoidbergphrase

A call of attention to something that is ridiculous.

why oh whyphrase

A strengthened form of why, as used in questions.

why on Earthintj

used to add emphasis to "why" when beginning a question.

why'dcontraction

Contraction of why + did.

why'mcontraction

Contraction of why + am.

why'n'tcontraction

Alternative form of whyn't.

why'recontraction

why are

why'scontraction

Contraction of why + is.

Whyattname

A surname.

whydahnoun

Any of various black and white African birds with distinctive drooping long tailfeathers on males in mating season, suitable as cage birds.

whydunitnoun

A type of detective story in which the focus is not on the person who committed the crime, but on the motives for committing it.

whyeveradv

Why ever: an emphatic form of why.

whyforadv

why; for what reason

whyingnoun

The act of asking the question "why?".

whyjacontraction

Pronunciation spelling of why d'you.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English alphabetical index for the letter W contains 12,113 headwords drawn from our Wiktionary-derived dictionary table. At 50 entries per page the browse splits into 243 pages, and you are currently viewing page 140. Every row above is a dictionary-backed entry with a canonical slug, and each links through to a full definition page with pronunciation, senses, etymology, and related-word data where available.

On this page 50 of 50 entries carry a part-of-speech tag and 50 carry at least one stored definition. Coverage varies across letters because Wiktionary volunteers build entries at different speeds for different parts of the alphabet, letters with common starting sounds (S, C, T, P) usually have the densest coverage, while less frequent starters (X, Q, Z) tend to have shorter but more specialised lists. PlainSpell surfaces whatever data is present and links back to the source when a definition is not yet recorded.

For readers using this index as a spelling reference, the guarantee is that every form you see on the list is a documented English headword, not a guess, not a derived inflection lacking a lemma row. If a word you expected to find is absent from the "W" list, it usually means the form exists only as an inflection of another lemma (e.g. a past participle stored under the infinitive) or the entry has not yet been imported from Wiktionary. Use the search bar or the misspelling lookup to resolve these cases.