whomvswhoopWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: whom is a pronoun, whoop is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“whom” is a pronoun and “whoop” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,513
“whom” frequency rank
#22,551
“whoop” frequency rank
24064
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature whom whoop
Definition What person or people; which person or people. A loud, eager cry, usually of joy.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set whom and whoop apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
whom
5 ch
whoop

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: whom is /huːm/ while whoop is /wuːp/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24064, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

whom is recorded at frequency rank #1,513, classified as apron, pronounced /huːm/. whoop is at rank #22,551, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wuːp/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 24064, this pair ranks #404,752 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of whom vs whoop

Shared letters: how. Private to "whom": m. Private to "whoop": p.

"whom" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "whoop" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whomhwom · whhom · whmo · whomm · wohm · wwhom
  • whoophwoop · whhoop · whoopp · whop · whopo · wohop · wwhoop

Frequency comparison

whom#1,513
whoop#22,551

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "whom" and "whoop" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "whom" is a pronoun and "whoop" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "whom" or "whoop"?
"whom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,513 in our English list, against #22,551 for "whoop". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering whom vs whoop

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a pronoun, it's “whom”; for a noun, it's “whoop”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “whom” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list