English Explanatory Dictionary

they

English dictionary entry

Meanings

pron
  1. A group of entities previously mentioned.
  2. A single person, previously mentioned, whose gender is unknown, irrelevant, or (since 20th c.) non-binary.
  3. People; some people; people in general; someone, excluding the speaker.
  4. The authorities, the (power) elites, the powers that be, the establishment, the man, the system: government, police, employers, etc.
  5. The opponents of the side which is keeping score.
det
  1. The, those.
  2. Their.
verb
  1. To refer to (someone, sometimes especially someone who does not use gender-neutral pronouns) using they/them pronouns.
pron
  1. There (especially as an expletive subject of be).
pron
  1. Honorific alternative letter-case form of of they, sometimes used when referring to gods or other important figures who are understood from context.

Pronunciation

/ˈðeɪ̯/ En-uk-they.ogg En-us-they.ogg /ˈðæ̝ɪ̯/ /ˈðə/

Word forms

they them their theirs themselves themself dey thay theye thaay the theys theying theyed

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tóy Proto-Germanic *þai Proto-Norse *ᚦᚨᛁᛉ (*þaiʀ) Old Norse þeirbor. Middle English þei English they From Middle English þei, borrowed in the 1200s from Old Norse þeir, plural of the demonstrative sá which acted as a plural pronoun. Displaced native Middle English he from Old English hīe — which vowel changes had left indistinct from he (“he”) — by the 1400s, being readily incorporated alongside native words beginning with the same sound (the, that, this). Used as a singular pronoun since 1300, e.g. in the 1325 Cursor Mundi. The Norse term (whence also Icelandic þeir (“they”), Faroese teir (“they”), Danish de (“they”), Swedish de (“they”), Norwegian Nynorsk dei (“they”)) is from Proto-Germanic *þai (“those”) (from Proto-Indo-European *to- (“that”)), whence also Old English þā (“those”) (whence obsolete English tho), Scots thae, thai, thay (“they; those”), Swabian dia (“they”). The origin of the determiner they (“the, those”) is unclear. The OED, English Dialect Dictionary and Middle English Dictionary define it and its Middle English predecessor thei as a demonstrative determiner or adjective meaning “those” or “the”. This could be a continuation of the use of the English pronoun they's Old Norse etymon þeir as a demonstrative meaning “those”, but the OED and EDD say it is limited to southern, especially southwestern, England, specifically outside the region of Norse contact.

Antonyms

we

Related words

us versus them Ime me myselfmemysen mine mymineme we us ourselvesourselfoursen oursourn our you yourselfyoursen yoursyourn your thou thee thyselftheeselfthysen thine thythine youye yourselves you ally'all you guys yous y'allselves all yours y'all's you guys' your guys' all your y'all's your all's you guys' your guys' he him himselfhisselfhissen hishisn his she her herselfhersen hershern ithit itselfhitself itshis itshishits them themself themselves theirs their one oneself – one's themhem 'em themselvestheirsen theirstheirn The following table shows a list of English personal pronoun including archaic and dialectal forms. Dialectal and obsolete archaic forms are in italics. 1 See Appendix:English third-person singular pronouns for attested neopronoun. other attested third-person singular pronouns theirselves theirself

Derived words

as they come as they say generic they if pigs had wings, they would fly it doesn't matter what they say about you as long as they spell your name right let the chips fall where they may let the dice fall where they may that's why they play the game they don't make them like that anymore theyfriend they hate us 'cause they ain't us they hit the Pentagon they say they-uns will-they-won't-they
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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