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PlainSpell

whose

/huːz/determiner, pronoun

whose is spelled W-H-O-S-E. The wrong spelling people search most is whoes: about 100 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 36 of all searches for the word. Whose is a determiner meaning “Of whom, belonging to whom; which person's or people's”.

How many letters and syllables are in whose?

Letters5: W-H-O-S-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing117 times per million words; the 904th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, whoes, about 100 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell whose?

Whose is spelled W-H-O-S-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 36 of the searches for whose in either form.

whosethe right spelling3,460 searches a month
whoess and e swapped100 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is whose?

Whose appears 117 times per million words in written English, the 904th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce whose?

  • US /huːz/

Whose has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-whose.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with whose

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

who's vs whose320 G

Sounds like: who's (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with whose?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as whose from its last stressed vowel (/uz/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

What does whose mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

determiner

  1. 1

    Of whom, belonging to whom; which person's or people's.

    Whose (wallet) is this?

  2. 2

    Of whom, belonging to whom.

    This is the man whose dog caused the accident.

  3. 3

    Of which, belonging to which.

    We saw several houses whose roofs were falling off.

pronoun

  1. 1

    That or those of whom or belonging to whom.

    Several people have lost their suitcases. Whose have you found?

  2. 2

    That or those of whom or belonging to whom.

    This car is blocking the way, but Mr Smith, whose it is, will be here shortly.

determiner

as Whose
  1. 1

    Honorific alternative letter-case form of whose, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate whose?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of whose: wz.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Whose in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchà qui (of whom (interrogative)), de qui, dont (of whom (relative)), duquel, de laquelle (of which (relative)), à qui? ((interrogative) that or those of whom or…)
Germanwessen (of whom (interrogative)), dessen, deren (of whom (relative)), wem gehört/gehören? ((interrogative) that or those of whom or…)
Portuguesede quem (of whom (interrogative)), cujo, cuja (of whom (relative)), cujos (of which (relative))
Spanishde quién, cúyo, cúya, cúyos, cúyas (of whom (interrogative)), de quien (of whom (relative))

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does whose come from?

From Middle English whos, from Old English hwæs, from Proto-Germanic *hwes, genitive case of *hwaz (“who”) *hwat (“what”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after whose