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whatever

Pronunciation: /ʍɒtˈɛv.ə/

The English word “whatever” has 14 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A thing or person whose actual name is unknown or forgotten.
  2. Something whose exact kind or nature is unimportant; a thingy.

determiner

  1. What ever; emphatic form of 'what'.
  2. Regardless of the ... that; for any ... that.
  3. Any ... that; of no matter what type or kind that.
  4. Any; of no matter what type or kind.

pronoun

  1. What ever; emphasised form of 'what', used to ask which thing, event, circumstance, etc.
  2. Regardless of anything that.
  3. Anything that; all that.
  4. Anything; thing(s) of unspecified kind, or no matter what kind; sometimes used to indicate that the speaker does not care about options.

adverb

  1. At all; in any way; whatsoever.
  2. In what way; to what extent.

interjection

  1. A holophrastic expression used to dismiss something that the speaker doesn't care about, doesn't think important, or doesn't want to consider or discuss any further. Sometimes conceived as an ellipsis of whatever you say, implying feigned deference: whatever you say [apparently must be true].

adjective

  1. Unexceptional or unimportant; blah.

Etymology

From Middle English whatever. By surface analysis, what + -ever.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.