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Anyone vs Whoever - What's the difference?

anyone | whoever |

As pronouns the difference between anyone and whoever

is that anyone is any person; anybody while whoever is whatever person or persons.

As an adverb whoever is

An emphatic form of who.

anyone

English

Alternative forms

* any one

Pronoun

(English Pronouns)
  • Any person; anybody.
  • * (George Bernard Shaw)
  • The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild
  • , title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=8 , passage= “[…] Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm straight, but this time I had six thousand quid at stake. […] I laid 'em long odds because it wasn't in the nature of things that Wynbolt could beat all of them champs. Then—then he smashed one after another, until I got windy—nervous as you might say. […]”}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}

    Synonyms

    * anybody

    whoever

    English

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (An emphatic form of) who .
  • Pronoun

    (en-pron)
  • Whatever person or persons.
  • Whoever thought up that stupid idea?

    Usage notes

    See also

    * whatever * wherever * whenever * whomever * whosoever * nobody

    Pronoun

    (head)
  • *
  • (attention)

    Anagrams

    *