The indefinite pronouns are the words that stand in for a person or a thing without identifying it: somebody, something, anybody, nothing, each one, whichever. Greek has a dozen of them and they are scattered across several pages of this guide, because most of them are determiners first and pronouns second. This page is the index — it sorts them, and it sends you to the page that teaches each one.
Two questions organise the whole set, and if you can answer both for a given word you know most of what you need.
Does it inflect? Some are ordinary adjectives in disguise (κάποιος, κανένας, καθένας, οποιοσδήποτε) and take the gender, number and case of whatever they stand for. Others are frozen (κάτι, τίποτα, οτιδήποτε) and never change shape at all.
Which series? This is the one that catches English speakers, because English hides it. Greek indefinites fall into three families:
- The positive series — κάποιος, κάτι, μερικοί — states that something exists. It is at home in a plain affirmative sentence.
- The polarity series — κανένας, τίποτα, ποτέ, πουθενά, καθόλου — cannot stand in a plain affirmative sentence at all. It needs a licensing context: a negation, a question, a condition. The same word then comes out as nobody in one context and anybody in another.
- The free-choice series — οποιοσδήποτε, οτιδήποτε — says the choice does not matter: any at all, whichever you like.
English lets one word, any, cover the last two, which is exactly why learners reach for κανένας when they need οποιοσδήποτε. A fourth group — the universals καθένας, ο καθένας, όλοι — is on the map below because this is where learners come looking for it, though strictly it quantifies over the whole set rather than leaving the referent unidentified.
Κάποιος άφησε το ποδήλατό του στη σκάλα και δεν περνάει κανείς.
kápios áfise to podhílató tu sti skála ke dhen pernái kanís
Somebody's left their bike on the stairs and now nobody can get past.
Δεν βρήκα τίποτα ανοιχτό μετά τα δώδεκα.
dhen vríka típota anichtó metá ta dhódheka
I couldn't find anything open after twelve.
The map
| Form | Meaning | Inflects? | Series | Taught on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| κάποιος, -α, -ο | somebody, some … or other | yes, fully | positive | μερικοί, κάποιος, κάτι |
| κάτι | something | no | positive | κάτι or κάποιος |
| μερικοί, -ές, -ά | some, a few (plural only) | yes, plural only | positive | μερικοί, κάποιος, κάτι |
| καθένας, καθεμιά, καθένα | each one | yes, no plural | universal | κάθε and καθένας |
| ο καθένας | everyone | yes, no plural | universal | κάθε and καθένας |
| όλοι / όλα | everybody / everything | yes | universal | όλος |
| κανένας / κανείς | nobody; anybody | yes, no plural | polarity | κανένας |
| τίποτα | nothing; anything | no | polarity | negative words |
| ποτέ, πουθενά, καθόλου | never, nowhere, not at all | no (adverbs) | polarity | negative words |
| οποιοσδήποτε, -αδήποτε, -οδήποτε | anyone at all, whichever | yes, on the first half | free choice | this page |
| οτιδήποτε | anything at all, whatever | no | free choice | this page |
The two words that behave least like the rest are κάτι and τίποτα: they look like a matched pair and they are, but only one of them can open a sentence. Their division of labour, including the question where both are possible, is on κάτι or κάποιος and negative polarity.
The free-choice series: οποιοσδήποτε, οτιδήποτε
The -δήποτε words are the family the other pages hand over to this one. They are built by welding -δήποτε onto a relative stem, and they mean any … at all, it makes no difference which. Crucially they are not polarity items: they stand happily in a plain affirmative sentence with no negation and no question anywhere near them, which is precisely what κανένας cannot do.
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
| οποιοσδήποτε, οποιαδήποτε, οποιοδήποτε | anyone / any … at all |
| οτιδήποτε | anything at all, whatever |
| οπουδήποτε | anywhere at all |
| οποτεδήποτε | at any time at all |
| οσοσδήποτε, οσηδήποτε, οσοδήποτε | however much / however many |
οποιοσδήποτε and οσοσδήποτε are the two that inflect, and they inflect on their front half only — οποιονδήποτε, οποιουδήποτε, οποιαδήποτε; οσηδήποτε, οσαδήποτε — while δήποτε is welded on and never moves. οτιδήποτε, οπουδήποτε and οποτεδήποτε are frozen in the shape given above.
Μπορείς να με πάρεις οποιαδήποτε ώρα, δεν κοιμάμαι νωρίς.
borís na me páris opiadhípote óra, dhen kimáme norís
You can call me at any time at all — I don't go to bed early.
Θα φάω οτιδήποτε, πεινάω φοβερά.
tha fáo otidhípote, pináo foverá
I'll eat anything — I'm starving.
Πάρε με οποτεδήποτε, δεν με ενοχλείς ποτέ.
páre me opotedhípote, dhen me enochlís poté
Ring me whenever you like, you're never bothering me.
Two notes of register. First, the -δήποτε series belongs to careful speech and writing — notices, contracts, instructions. In relaxed conversation Greeks more often build the same idea out of a relative plus και να: ό,τι κι αν γίνει, όποιος κι αν είναι, or simply ό,τι θέλεις. Those free relatives have their own page, free relatives.
Πάρε ό,τι θέλεις από το ψυγείο, μη ρωτάς.
páre óti thélis apó to psiyío, mi rotás
Take whatever you want from the fridge, don't ask.
Second, one member of the family has left the group entirely. οπωσδήποτε was once "in whatever way", and in modern Greek it simply means definitely, without fail — an adverb of insistence with no free-choice meaning left in it.
Θα έρθω οπωσδήποτε, μην ανησυχείς καθόλου.
tha értho opozdhípote, min anisichís kathólu
I'll definitely be there, don't worry at all.
Common Mistakes
1. Using the free-choice word for the plain negative "anything". English I didn't say anything and I didn't say just anything are two different sentences, and Greek marks the difference with two different words.
❌ Δεν είπα οτιδήποτε σε κανέναν.
Incorrect for 'I said nothing to anyone' — οτιδήποτε is free-choice 'just anything', so this claims you were being selective. Plain negation takes τίποτα.
✅ Δεν είπα τίποτα σε κανέναν, το ορκίζομαι.
dhen ípa típota se kanénan, to orkízome
I didn't say anything to anyone, I swear.
2. Treating οπωσδήποτε as the free-choice word its shape suggests. It has moved on; the free-choice word for "whichever" is όποιος or οποιοσδήποτε.
❌ Πάρε οπωσδήποτε βιβλίο θέλεις.
Incorrect — οπωσδήποτε means 'definitely'; for 'whichever book you like' use όποιο or οποιοδήποτε.
✅ Πάρε όποιο βιβλίο θέλεις, τα έχω διαβάσει όλα.
páre ópio vivlío thélis, ta écho dhiavási óla
Take whichever book you want, I've read them all.
3. Leaving οποιοσδήποτε uninflected because it is long. The front half is an ordinary adjective and agrees like one.
❌ Δέχομαι οποιοσδήποτε πρόταση.
Incorrect — πρόταση is feminine and the object of the verb, so the form is οποιαδήποτε πρόταση.
✅ Δέχομαι οποιαδήποτε πρόταση, αρκεί να φύγω από δω.
dhéchome opiadhípote prótasi, arkí na fígho apó dho
I'll take any offer at all, as long as I get out of here.
Key Takeaways
- Ask two questions of every indefinite: does it inflect, and which series does it belong to.
- The positive series (κάποιος, κάτι, μερικοί) asserts existence; the polarity series (κανένας, τίποτα, ποτέ, πουθενά, καθόλου) needs a negation, question or condition to license it; the free-choice series (οποιοσδήποτε, οτιδήποτε) needs nothing and means "any at all".
- English any covers the last two series at once — the commonest source of error in this whole area.
- οποιοσδήποτε and οσοσδήποτε inflect on their front half only (οποιονδήποτε, οποιαδήποτε; οσηδήποτε); οτιδήποτε, οπουδήποτε, οποτεδήποτε are frozen.
- The -δήποτε series leans formal; everyday speech prefers ό,τι θέλεις, όποιος κι αν είναι.
- οπωσδήποτε has left the family and now means definitely, without fail.
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Start learning Greek →Related Topics
- Negative Polarity: κανένας, τίποτα, ποτέB1 — κανένας, τίποτα, ποτέ, πουθενά and καθόλου are not negative words — they are words that need a licensing context, and negation is only the commonest one. Questions, αν-clauses, πριν-clauses, χωρίς να, comparatives and superlatives all license them too, which is why the same word comes out as 'nobody' in one sentence and 'anybody' in the next, and why adding δεν inside a χωρίς να clause breaks it.
- κάτι vs κάποιοςB1 — Not the forms — the choice. κάποιος points at a person the speaker could name and will not; κάτι points at a thing or, far more often, an event the speaker cannot name at all, which is why Κάτι έγινε and Κάτι τρέχει have no κάποιος counterpart. Plus the neuter-singular agreement that κάτι forces on everything after it (κάτι καινούριο, κάτι το γοητευτικό) and the narrow escape hatch that lets both words survive a negation.
- Some: μερικοί, κάποιος, κάτιB1 — The three ways Greek says 'some' — plural-only μερικοί/μερικές/μερικά for a handful of countable things, the fully declined κάποιος for a single unidentified one ('some man or other'), and invariable κάτι, which is 'something' but also, in speech, a vague plural quantifier (κάτι παιδιά) — plus why κάτι and κάποιος must become τίποτα and κανένας under negation.
- κανένας: 'no/any' and NegationA2 — κανένας / καμιά / κανένα is Greek's 'nobody' and its 'any' in one word, and it never works alone: Δεν ήρθε κανείς needs both δεν and κανείς, because Greek stacks negatives instead of cancelling them. Full paradigm, the κανείς/κανένας doublet, the obligatory δεν even in Κανείς δεν ήρθε, and the friendly spoken reading in Πάμε για κανένα ποτό;
- κάθε and καθένας: 'each/every'A2 — κάθε is the one determiner in Greek that never changes shape and never takes an article — κάθε μέρα, κάθε άνθρωπος, κάθε δύο ώρες — and it forces a singular noun and a singular verb where English says 'everyone… their'. Its pronoun partner does decline (ο καθένας, του καθενός, της καθεμιάς), and with the article it is the everyday word for 'everyone'.