# what vs who

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### what
*determiner · IPA /wɒt/ · frequency rank #46*
Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities.

### who
*pronoun · IPA /huː/ · frequency rank #53*
What person or people; which person or people; asks for the identity of someone; used in a direct or indirect question.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/what-vs-who