Whether Meaning: The Word for Choices and Doubts

Whether meaning in its two main jobs

1. Reporting a question or doubt. Whether introduces something that could be true or false: "She asked whether the train was on time." "I wonder whether he got my message." The original question needed a yes or no answer.
2. Saying the choice makes no difference. With or, whether shows that something happens in every case: "Whether you take the bus or walk, it is about twenty minutes." This is sometimes called the no matter which use.

In both jobs there is an or, stated or hidden. "I don't know whether she will come" quietly means "whether she will come or not".

Examples in sentences

• The coach hasn't decided whether Aisha will start the final.
• Check whether the charger works before you pack it.
• We argued for an hour about whether to paint the room blue or green.
• Whether the flight lands early or late, someone will be at the gate.
• The question is not whether we can afford it, but whether we need it.

Whether vs if

In many reported questions you can use either: "Ask him whether he's free" and "Ask him if he's free" both work. But there are places where only whether is correct:

And if has a job whether cannot do: conditions. "If it rains, we will stay in" sets up a condition. "Whether it rains, we will stay in" is not English. When you want to avoid any doubt, especially in formal writing, choose whether for alternatives and if for conditions.

Is "or not" needed?

Whether or not is a common pair. You need the or not when you mean "in either case": "We'll leave at six whether or not he's ready" (we leave regardless). Without it the sentence changes: "We'll leave at six whether he's ready" sounds unfinished.

In reported questions the or not is optional and usually dropped: "Find out whether the shop delivers" is cleaner than "Find out whether or not the shop delivers". Both are correct. You can also split the pair: "whether he's ready or not".

Whether vs weather

These two sound almost identical, so typing the wrong one is common.

• Whether is a joining word for choices: "whether to stay or go".
• Weather is a noun for rain, sun, wind and temperature: "The weather is lovely today." As a verb, weather means to survive something hard: "The shop weathered the slow season."

A memory aid: whether starts with wh, like other question words (what, which, when, where, why). If the sentence is about a choice, you want the question spelling. Some speakers in Scotland, Ireland and parts of the US still pronounce the wh with a breathy h, which keeps the two words apart in speech.

Origin of whether

The word goes back well over a thousand years. Anglo-Saxon speakers used hwæther, which meant "which of the two" and could be used as a pronoun. It belongs with other hw- question words that became our wh- words. Over the centuries the pronoun use faded and the conjunction use stayed, still carrying that original sense of choosing between two.

Small joining words like this are worth learning well; see conjunction for the word class, albeit for another useful linker, and affect for a different pair of look-alikes. The everyday vocabulary section has many more.