cuyo

whose

determiner KOO-yoh Common

Origin: Latin cuius

Usage Note

Cuyo is a relative possessive determiner that agrees in gender and number with the noun it precedes, NOT with its antecedent: el autor cuya novela ganó el premio ('the author whose novel won the prize'). It is formal and literary; in everyday speech speakers often rephrase to avoid it, e.g. el autor que escribió la novela que ganó. It has no accentuated interrogative counterpart — 'whose?' is ¿de quién?.

Examples

"El libro cuyas páginas están rotas es mío."

Natural Translation

The book whose pages are torn is mine.

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