belonging to who or which: a grammatical word used to talk or ask about the person or thing something belongs to Whose are these boots? "It wasn't my idea." - "Well, whose was it then?" a theatre whose doors will always be open to such a talented performer Whose car shall we use? He wanted to know whose the scarf was.
[ Old English hwæs, genitive of the pronouns hwa (masculine) "who" and hwæt (neuter) "what." Influenced in Middle English by who and whom]
Word Usage
See who's.
Word Usage
Some people dislike the use of whose to mean "of which" (as in There was a church whose steeple had been struck by lightning.), but it is a well-established use and the alternatives are usually awkward.
