Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
pron
What.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Ireland, Northern-England, Scotland, archaic, dialectal
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Originally a contraction of what kind (of) (the DSL traces the Scots cognate back to Middle English whatkin, whatkyn, but the MED's only example is of the two-word collocation what kyn), later used in place of bare what.
