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Who's or Whose?
What Is the Difference between "Who's" and "Whose"?
"Who's" and "whose" are easy to confuse because they sound identical (i.e., they are perfect homonyms). However, their meanings are very different.- Who's. "Who's" is short for who is or who has.
- Who's going to the party?
- Who's taken my hat?
- Whose. "Whose" tells us about ownership. For example:
- I know a man whose dog can say "sausages." ("Whose" tells us that the man owns the dog.)
- Whose hat is this? (Here, "whose" asks a question about ownership.)

More about "Who's" and "Whose"
Who's
"Who's" is a contraction of either "who is" or "who has." It has no other uses.Example sentences with "who's":
- Who's coming to fix the bed?
- Who's eaten the last muffin?
- I met the inspector who's delivering tomorrow's briefing.
"Whose"
"Whose" is the possessive form of "who." It means "belonging to whom." "Whose" usually sits before a noun.- Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- Whose bike was expensive?
- Carl knows the girl whose phone was stolen.
Even More about "Whose"
There's a lot going on with "whose."As well as being a relative pronoun, "whose" is a determiner. You will see it listed with possessive determiners and with interrogative determiners. Here is a table with "whose" used in each of these grammatical functions.
Examples as a Relative Pronoun |
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Examples as a Possessive and an Interrogative Determiner |
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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? any more or anymore poisonous or venomous? practice or practise? principal or principle? tenant or tenet? What are contractions? What are interrogative pronouns? What are relative pronouns?List of easily confused words