Wether, Whether, Weather

The Quick Answer
What is the difference between wether, weather, and whether?
  • Wether. A wether is a castrated ram (male sheep).
  • Weather. Weather refers to the state of the atmosphere (e.g., temperature, wind, clouds, rain).
  • Whether. Whether is a conjunction with a similar meaning to if (e.g., I wonder whether it will rain.)

Wether, Weather, and Whether

The words wether, weather, and whether sound identical, but their meanings are very different.
wether weather whether

Wether

The word wether is most commonly seen as a misspelling for whether or weather. A wether is a castrated ram (a male sheep) or a castrated billy (a male goat).

Farmers will castrate their male goats or sheep to create wethers to ensure only the best male breeds with the females. Also of note, non-wethers (i.e., uncastrated males) show more aggression (to people and their young) and tend to stink (as non-wethers urinate on themselves during breeding season and have active glands that excrete an unpleasant scent).

From a grammatical perspective, the word wether is a noun. (More specifically, wether is a common noun and a gender-specific noun.)

Whether

The conjunction whether is similar to if. It is most often used to introduce an indirect question. (Provided the spelling is correct, whether is generally used correctly by native English speakers. The rules for using whether are covered in more detail in the lesson Whether and If.)

Examples:
  • Sarah wants to know whether the visit is still on schedule.
  • I am going to the fair, whether it's raining or not.

Weather

As a noun, the word weather means the atmosphere in terms of temperature, wind, clouds, and precipitation. As a verb, to weather can mean to withstand or to endure(e.g., to weather an onslaught) or to erode (over time) (e.g., to weather the surface rock).

Examples:
  • I am not going fishing today. Have you seen the weather?
    • (weather as a noun)
  • We'll anchor up, weather the storm and then head back to land.
    • (weather as a verb meaning to endure)
  • The sea will weather that rope in less than a week.
    • (weather as a verb meaning to erode)

See Also

adverse or averse? affect or effect? appraise or apprise? avenge or revenge? bare or bear? complement or compliment? dependant or dependent? discreet or discrete? disinterested or uninterested? e.g. or i.e.? envy or jealousy? imply or infer? its or it's? material or materiel? poisonous or venomous? practice or practise? principal or principle? tenant or tenet? whether and if who's or whose?
What are conjunctions? What are nouns? What are verbs? List of easily confused words