relative pronoun

American  

noun

• relative pronouns
  plural

1. one of the pronouns who, whom, which, what, their compounds with -ever or -soever, or that used as the subordinating word to introduce a subordinate clause, especially such a pronoun referring to an antecedent.

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Commonly Confused

See who.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• relative pronouns
  plural

Etymology

Origin of relative pronoun

First recorded in 1520–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

relative pronoun

The English language adds more physical weight and hard sound, with the audibility of the relative pronoun, "that", and the predominance of masculine line-endings contributory factors.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 11, 2013

The relative pronoun is so called because it relates or refers to another word, called its antecedent, to which it joins the clause that it introduces.

From Business English A Practice Book by Rose Buhlig

The same expression may stand thus: ni-c-nequia-tlagotlaz, where the c is an intercalated relative pronoun, and the literal rendering is, “I it wished, I shall love.”

From The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb by Daniel Garrison Brinton

When the word ever or soever is annexed to a relative pronoun, the combination is called a compound pronoun; as, whoever or whosoever, whichever or whichsoever, whatever or whatsoever.

From English Grammar in Familiar Lectures by Samuel Kirkham

Secondly, by the use of the adverb sakali, very, exceedingly, after the adjective when the latter is preceded by the relative pronoun yang; as— The best— Yang baik sakali.

From A Manual of the Malay language With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay by Sir William Edward Maxwell