Whoever or whomever?
whoever is a pronoun meaning “Any person or persons that”; whomever is a pronoun meaning “Whatever person or persons (as object of verb or preposition)”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) whoever is about 20 times as common as whomever.
What is the difference between whoever and whomever?
| whoever | whomever | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | pronoun | pronoun |
| Meaning | Who ever: an emphatic form of who Any person or persons that | Whatever person or persons (as object of verb or preposition) |
| Example | Whoever thought up that stupid idea? | The letter is addressed to whomever it may concern |
| Forms | whomever, whosever, whoe'er | whomsoever |
| Pronunciation | /huˈɛvɚ/ /huˈɛvə/ | /humˈɛvɚ/ |
| In writing | 26 times per million words | 1.3 times per million words |
Sources: whoever and whomever in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of whoever and whomever
whoever
- 1
Who ever: an emphatic form of who
Whoever thought up that stupid idea?
- 2
Any person or persons that
Whoever breaks the law will be punished
- 3
The person that (no matter who)
Whoever robbed that old lady ought to be locked up
- 4
Regardless of the person or persons that
Whoever stole the painting, the police will catch the thief in no time
- 5
informalAny person or persons
I don't care who gets it; give it to whoever
whomever
- 1
Whatever person or persons (as object of verb or preposition)
The letter is addressed to whomever it may concern
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, whoever or whomever?
whoever appears 26 times per million words; whomever 1.3 times per million words.
whoever 26 times per million wordswhomever 1.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search whoever vs whomever?
“whoever vs whomever” is searched about 8,100 times a month on Google and 1,190 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“whomever vs whoever”, “whoever or whomever”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.