Who were vs Who was

The phrases 'who were' and 'who was' are used in different contexts. 'Who were' is used when referring to plural subjects, while 'who was' is used when referring to singular subjects. Therefore, they are not directly comparable as they serve different grammatical purposes.

Last updated: April 01, 2024

Who were

This phrase is correct when referring to plural subjects.

Use 'who were' when referring to multiple people or things. It is the past tense of 'who are.'

Examples:

Who were the people at the party?
I don't know who were the winners of the competition.
Can you tell me who were present at the meeting?
Do you know who were the authors of these books?
Who were the students that passed the exam?

Alternatives:

who are
who have been
who have
who had been
who had

Who was

This phrase is correct when referring to singular subjects.

Use 'who was' when referring to a single person or thing. It is the past tense of 'who is.'

Examples:

Who was the winner of the competition?
I wonder who was at the party last night.
Do you know who was present at the meeting?
Who was the author of this book?
Who was the student that passed the exam?

Alternatives:

who is
who has been
who has
who had been
who had

What Our Customers Are Saying

Our customers love us! We have an average rating of 4.79 stars based on 283,125 votes.
Also check out our 2,100+ reviews on TrustPilot (4.9).

"Thank you!"
Sachi Nakama July 2024
"I have literally been through chat, PI, claude, bard and bing and I got conflicting answers! Thank you! Human intelligence reigns!"
Retha July 2024
"Faster than AI"
CYNTHIA December 2023
"This was very helpful and I personally think this site is the best."
Kaden October 2023
"It was extremely thorough and very helpful!"
imperialelisa October 2023
"7 years without any disappointment. Always 100% satisfied. You guys are the best in the world at what you do. Thank you so much :)"
Zubair Alam October 2023
"In a world of text messages and online communication, this is great to have as a live tool. Thank you."
Selena October 2023
"Without textranch I would be stuck!"
宏祐 October 2023
"Accuracy and fast response. Personal comments from editor. Thank you."
Clh September 2023
"I wasn't aware of this service, it's fascinating and more reliable than standard IA tools available on the internet"
Arturo September 2023
"The fact that you can get reliable fast feedback on your texts."
Vinicius Antonio August 2023
"you guys are better than grammarly i'm being honest here"
ordinary July 2023
"OMG! This is really good than any other text correction tools I've used so far. Highly recommend this."
Vehan July 2023
"Very fast and accurate. thank you."
mojtaba July 2023
"I love this app because it's help to writing skills all of students ♥️"
Tarisini July 2023
"This was exactly the mistake I was looking for, the wording dind´t sound right at first. Better than grammarly!"
Ente July 2023
"The immediate help that I received was reassuring and very satisfactory. Thanks."
priiiyanshuu July 2023
"this helps A LOT for my studies."
kathnunez02 June 2023
"Woow!! I would never have expected such precision! Thank you soooo much!!"
Berta June 2023
"Real Time Editor and not AI. Many Thanks."
Priya June 2023
"The very first thing excites me about Textranch is how much your editors care."
sepideh June 2023
"The fact that texts are checked by human editors rather than by AI, etc. I appreciate this!"
Анна June 2023
"Feel welcome, immediate response, high quality feedback"
martin.roy June 2023
"This is the best app that I have ever seen"
Burulai May 2023

Who were vs Who was

Who were

Who was

Related Comparisons

What Our Customers Are Saying