A primitive particle; properly interrogitive "what"? (including "how"?, "why"? and "when"?); but also exclamations like "what"! (including "how"!), or indefinitely "what" (including "whatever", and even relatively "that which"); often used with prefixes in various adverbial or conjugational sneses: - how (long, oft, [-soever]), [no-] thing, what (end, good, purpose, thing), whereby (-fore, -in, -to, -with), (for) why.