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she

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Appendix:Variations of "she"

Translingual

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Etymology

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Clipping of English Sheko.

Symbol

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she

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Sheko.

See also

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English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

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    Inherited from Middle English sche, scho, hyo, ȝho (“she”), whence also Yorkshire dialectal shoo (“she”), Scots she, sho (“she”).

    Probably from Old English hēo[1][2] (whence dialectal English hoo), with an irregular change in stress from hēo to heō /hjoː/, then a development from /hj-/ to /ç/ to /ʃ-/,[3][4] similar to the derivation of Shetland from Old Norse Hjaltland. In this case, she is from Proto-West Germanic *hiju, from Proto-Germanic *hijō f (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this, here”), and is cognate with Saterland Frisian jo, ju, West Frisian hja, North Frisian jü, Danish hun, Swedish hon; more at he.

    A derivation from Old English sēo (“that one”, occasionally “she”) is also possible, though less likely.[2][3][4] In that case, sēo would have undergone a change in stress from sēo to seō /sjoː/, then a change from /sj-/ to /ʃ-/, similar to the derivation of sure from Old French seur.[4][5] It would then be cognate to Dutch zij and German sie.

    Neither etymology would be expected to yield the modern vocalism in /iː/ (the expected form would be shoo, which is in fact found dialectally). It may be due to influence from he,[1] but both hēo and sēo also have rare variants (hīe and sīe) that may give modern English /iː/.[4][6]

    Pronunciation

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    Pronoun

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    English Wikipedia has an article on:
    Wikipedia

    she (third-person singular, feminine, nominative case, oblique and possessive her, possessive hers, reflexive herself)

    1. (personal) The female (typically) person or animal previously mentioned or implied.
      I asked Mary, but she said that she didn't know.
      After the cat killed a mouse, she left it on our doorstep.
      She seems a clever girl, your Isabel.
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
        Goodly she entertaind those noble knights, / And brought them vp into her castle hall […]
      • 1917, Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett, The Darling and Other Stories‎[1], Project Gutenberg, published 9 September 2004, →ISBN, page 71:
        The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I meant to express by them.
      • 2024 June 25, Issy Ronald, “Kevin, world’s tallest male dog, dies shortly after securing record”, in CNN‎[2]:
        His family, who live in West Des Moines, Iowa, have been left “devastated,” his owner Tracy Wolfe said in GWR press release. “He was just the best giant boy,” she added.
      • 2024 December 31, Brooke Kato, “What is ‘microretirement’? Gen Z and millennials spawn new career trend to help with woes”, in New York Post‎[3]:
        Morgan Sanner, a 27-year-old human resources worker in Ohio, told New York magazine’s The Cut that she felt inspired to follow in the footsteps of other people — who she noticed were “taking significant breaks” from their careers — after going abroad for the first time.
    2. (personal, sometimes endearing) A ship or boat.
      She could do forty knots in good weather.
      She is a beautiful boat, isn’t she?
      The tanker is 25 years old but she is still very seaworthy.
      • 1960 April, O. S. Nock, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 271 ("she" refers to a locomotive):
        On the long 1 in 100 ascent from Staveley to Heath she nearly stalled, and having taken 67¼ min. to cover the 38.2 miles to Nottingham instead of the 51 min. scheduled she gave up the ghost, and came off the train.
    3. (personal, dated, sometimes endearing) A country, or sometimes a city, province, planet, etc.
      She is a poor place, but has beautiful scenery and friendly people.
    5. (personal, endearing or poetic, chiefly dated) A thing, especially a machine or other object, such as a car, a computer, or (poetically) a season.
      She only gets thirty miles to the gallon on the highway, but she’s durable.
      • 1928, The Journal of the American Dental Association, page 765:
        Prodigal in everything, summer spreads her blessings with lavish unconcern, and waving her magic wand across the landscape of the world, she bids the sons of men to enter in and possess. Summer is the great consummation.
      • 1977, “57 Chevy”, in Kansas City Slickers, performed by The Leopards:
        She is my 57 Chevy / My 57 Chevy runs so fine / No one can beat my 57 Chevy
      • 2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:
        The car’s engine revved up, and the back wheels screeched. Then she lurched forward at terrific speed.
    6. (personal, nonstandard) A person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (used in a work, along with or in place of he, as an indefinite pronoun).
      Synonym: they
      • 1990, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience:
        Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage.
    7. (personal, Roman Catholicism) The Catholic Church.
      • 2026, Pope Leo XIV, chapter 1, in Magnifica humanitas‎[4]:
        The Church is present in the world as a sign of unity for the entire human family. She recognizes today’s questions and challenges as the current setting in which to carry out her particular vocation of listening, dialogue and service, and of being responsive to everything concerning the lives of contemporary men and women.

    Usage notes

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    • Since at least the 1920s and 30s, some gay or queer men refer to other gay or queer men and/or themselves with she/her pronouns, as well as with other feminine terms such as Miss and girl, to signal their sexuality rather than their gender identity;[7] this has sometimes been termed "the gay she":[8][9]
    examples, details, and additional references
    • 1997, Anna Livia, Kira Hall, Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality, page 359:
      In English, gay men often use the female pronoun she to refer to other gay men:
      SPEAKER A: Speaking of fags, where is Miss Thing?
      SPEAKER B: You mean Ron?
      SPEAKER A: Yeah.
      SPEAKER B: I don't know where she is.
      (Rudes and Healy ['Is She For Real'] 1979: 61)
      […] this linguistic strategy is not intended to reflect a feminine persona so much as to dissociate the speaker from heterosexual alliance. As such, it is a statement of sexual orientation rather than of sexual [/gender] identity. The men who use these feminine forms to refer to themselves or to other gay men are designating themselves, as well as the referents, as traitors to heterosexual masculinity.
    • 1994, George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, pages 56-57:
      One indication of the extent to which men became accustomed to thinking of fairies as pseudo-women was provided in 1939 by a State Liquor Authority investigator who casually referred to a fairy (who went by a woman's name but dressed in conventional male attire) as "she," even though he was testifying at a formal hearing of the Authority. "We did get in a conversation with Beverly," he testified, "and she stated she liked us very much." When asked by an attorney whether he meant "she" or "he," he explained that the fairies "address themselves by these effeminate names and refer to one another in the effeminate terms," and promptly continued: "She [the fairy] made a date with Mr. Van Wagner and myself for Saturday night."

    Alternative forms

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    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    See also

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    English personal pronouns

    Dialectal and obsolete or archaic forms are in italics.

    personal pronoun possessive
    pronoun    		 possessive
    determiner
    subjective objective reflexive
    first
    person    		 singular I
    me (colloquial)    		 me myself
    me
    mysen    		 mine my
    mine (before vowels, archaic)
    me
    plural we us ourselves
    ourself
    oursen    		 ours
    ourn (obsolete outside dialects)    		 our
    second
    person    		 singular standard
    (historically
    formal)     		you you yourself
    yoursen    		 yours
    yourn (obsolete outside dialects)    		 your
    archaic
    (historically
    informal)     		thou thee thyself
    theeself
    thysen    		 thine thy
    thine (before vowels)
    plural standard you
    ye (archaic)    		 you yourselves yours
    yourn (obsolete outside dialects)    		 your
    colloquial you all
    y'all
    you guys
    yous    		 you all
    y'all
    you guys
    yous    		 y'allselves all yours
    y'all's
    you guys'
    your guys'    		 all your
    y'all's
    your all's (nonstandard)
    you guys'
    your guys'
    informal /
    dialectal     		(see list of dialectal forms at you and inflected forms in those entries)
    third
    person         		singular masculine he him himself
    hisself (archaic)
    hissen    		 his
    hisn (obsolete outside dialects)    		 his
    feminine she her herself
    hersen    		 hers
    hern (obsolete outside dialects)    		 her
    neuter it
    hit    		 it
    hit    		 itself
    hitself    		 its
    his (archaic)    		 its
    his (archaic)
    hits
    genderless1 they them themself, themselves theirs their
    nonspecific
    (formal)     		one one oneself – one's
    plural they them
    hem, 'em    		 themselves
    theirsen    		 theirs
    theirn (obsolete outside dialects)    		 their

    1 See Appendix:English third-person singular pronouns for attested neopronouns.

    Noun

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    she (plural shes)

    1. A female.
      Pat is definitely a she.
      • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
        Come, come, we know very well what all the matter is; but if one won’t, another will; so pretty a gentleman need never want a lady. I am sure, if I was you, I would see the finest she that ever wore a head hanged, before I would go for a soldier for her.
      • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 130”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
        And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare.
      • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
        he came home to find […] honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.
      • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 199:
        “They were all hairy-faced bulls but one,” he said, “and that one was a she, lighter in color even than this stranger,” and he chucked a thumb at Tarzan.
      • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 12:
        “Then,” I said, much amused, “you think that if you were mixed up in a crime, say a murder, you’d be able to spot the murderer right off?” “Of course I should. Mightn’t be able to prove it to a pack of lawyers. But I’m certain I’d know. I’d feel it in my fingertips if he came near me.” “It might be a ‘she’,” I suggested.
      • 1972, Lou Reed, “Walk on the Wild Side”, in Transformer:
        Plucked her eyebrows on the way / Shaved her legs and then he was a she
      • 2000, Sue V. Rosser, Building inclusive science volume 28, issues 1–2, page 189:
        A world where the hes are so much more common than the shes can hardly be seen as a welcoming place for women.

    Verb

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    she

    1. (transitive) To refer to (someone) using she/her pronouns.
      • 2019 April 16, Natalia Deeb-Sossa, Community-Based Participatory Research: Testimonios from Chicana/o Studies, University of Arizona Press, →ISBN, page 193:
        If somebody wants to go by “he,” continually “sheing” them [is invalidating].
      • 2023 December 7, Laura L. Paterson, The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:
        In his conversation with the woman, Ari would 'he' himself using the masculine pronoun and she would reply by consistently 'sheing' him. Such examples share something about the emotional quality of language […]

    Determiner

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    she

    1. (African-American Vernacular) Synonym of her.

    See also

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    References

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    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Roger Lass (1992), “Phonology and Morphology”, in Norman Blake, editor, Cambridge History of the English Language, volume II, pages 118-119
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 “she, pron.¹, n., and adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2013.
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 R. D. Fulk (2012), An Introduction to Middle English: Grammar and Texts, pages 64-65
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Cecily Clark, The Peterborough Chronicle, 1070-1154 (1970), page lxvi-lxvii: "Most favoured recently has been derivation from heo/hie, though a chain of development [hi] > [hj] > [ç] > [ʃ]. The decisive change [ç] > [ʃ] has been various explained, either as an example of a Norse sound-change found elsewhere only in a few place-names (the so-called "Shetland theory") or as substitution of a common initial phoneme for a rare one, linked with the need to maintain the distinction both from masculine he and from second-person plural ȝe. Geographical distribution ofh- and sch- forms during the Middle English period is said to support derivation from stress-shifted [hjè]. [... There] still seems, however, something to be said for the older theory put forward in NED: that scæ developed from sie, through [sjè]. Certainly the demonstrative seo was used as an emphatic pronoun, as, for instance, in Sermo in Festis S. Marie; and, although the variant nom. sing. sie is regularly used only in the Vespasian Psalter Gloss (once in Rushworth St. Matthew), such forms as sy ea in the E Preface (beside DF seo) and si [...] in the Northhamptonshire Geld-Roll suggest that it may have been current in Peterborough usage as well. This theory explains better than that of derivation from stress-shifted heo/hie the coexistence of sch- and h-forms in the same text, as in Sir Gawain (scho and ho) and William of Palerne (sche and he). Its weakness lies in failing to explain why the [ʃ], regular in the pronoun, never occurs in the demonstrative [...]"
    5. ^ E. E. Wardale, An Introduction to Middle English (1937 [2016]), chapter VI (pp. 91-92 and notes), covers other proposed explanations, including that it is from a mixture of both hēo and sēo
    6. ^ Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey, editors (2024), “hē, hēo, hit”, in Dictionary of Old English: A to Le Free access subject to limited trial; subscription normally required⁠, Toronto: University of Toronto, →OCLC.
    7. ^ Greville G. Corbett, The Expression of Gender (2013), page 26: "There are uses of she to refer to people who are attributed and claim male sex. Rudes and Healy 1979 give many examples collected in their ethnolinguistic investigation among gay males in Buffalo, NY."
    8. ^ Kirby Conrod, "Pronouns in motion", in Lavender Linguistics (2018), page 11
    9. ^ Anna T., Opacity - Minority - Improvisation: An Exploration of the Closet Through Queer Slangs and Postcolonial Theory (→ISBN, 2020), pages 84-85

    Anagrams

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    Achang

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    Pronunciation

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    • (Myanmar) /ʃɛ˧/
    • (Lianghe) [ʂɛ⁵⁵]
    • (Longchuan) [ʂa⁵⁵]
    • (Luxi) [sə³⁵]
    • (Xiandao) [ʂa⁵⁵]

    Verb

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    she

    1. to pull, drag

    Further reading

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    • Inglis, Douglas; Sampu, Nasaw; Jaseng, Wilai; Jana, Thocha (2005), A preliminary Ngochang–Kachin–English Lexicon‎[5], Payap University, page 116

    Albanian

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    Alternative forms

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    Etymology

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    A derivative of shi.[1]

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    she m (plural shera, definite sheu, definite plural sherat)

    1. undrying rivulet, torrent, rapid stream

    Declension

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    Declension of she
    singular plural
    indefinite definite indefinite definite
    nominative she sheu shera sherat
    accusative sheun
    dative sheu sheut sherave sherave
    ablative sherash
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    References

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    1. ^ Orel, Vladimir (1998), “she”, in Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden; Boston; Cologne: Brill, →ISBN, page 409

    Further reading

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    • “she”, in FMGJSH: Fjalor i madh i gjuhës shqipe (in Albanian), 2026
    • Mann, S. E. (1948), “shé”, in An Historical Albanian–English Dictionary, London: Longmans, Green & Co., page 470

    Ido

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    Etymology

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    From sh (/ʃ/) +‎ -e.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    she (plural she-i)

    1. The name of the Latin script digraph Sh/sh.

    See also

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    Japanese

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    Romanization

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    she

    1. The katakana syllable シェ (she) in Hepburn romanization.

    Mandarin

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    Romanization

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    she

    1. nonstandard spelling of shē
    2. nonstandard spelling of shé
    3. nonstandard spelling of shě
    4. nonstandard spelling of shè

    Usage notes

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    • Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

    Manx

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    Etymology

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    From Old Irish is ed (“it is so”). Compare Irish sea, Scottish Gaelic seadh.

    Particle

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    she (dependent form nee)

    1. Present/future copula form
      She ynseyder eh Juan. ― John is a teacher. (definition: predicate is indefinite)
      She Juan yn ynseyder. ― John is the teacher. (identification: predicate is definite)
      She mish honnick eh. ― It's me who saw him. (cleft sentence)
      She Juan ta ny ynseyder. ― It's John who is a teacher. (cleft sentence)

    Usage notes

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    Used in present and future sentences for identification or definition of a subject as the person/object identified in the predicate of the sentence. Used to introduce cleft sentences, which are extremely common in Manx. It is not a verb. For the particle that introduces adjectives, see s'.

    She has no past tense; the appropriate conjugation of ve must be used instead.

    • Shen va'n soilshey firrinagh.
      That was the true light.

    Middle English

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    Pronoun

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    she

    1. alternative form of sche

    Nkangala

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    Etymology

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    Inherited from Proto-Bantu *-ncè

    Determiner

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    -she

    1. all

    References

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    • The Word for the World Translation, Nkangala Bible Translation

    Wutunhua

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    Etymology

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    From Mandarin 十 (shí).

    Numeral

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    she

    1. ten

    References

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    • Erika Sandman (2016), A Grammar of Wutun‎[6], University of Helsinki (PhD), →ISBN

    Yimchungru Naga

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    Etymology

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    From Proto-Central Naga *səj, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sij.

    Verb

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    she

    1. to die

    Further reading

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    • Raguibou, I.D.; Borah, Dinkur (29 July 2022), A Yimkhiung-English-Hindi Trilingual Dictionary‎[7], Centre for Endangered Languages, Tezpur University, page 44
    • Bruhn, Daniel Wayne (2014), A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Central Naga‎[8], Berkeley: University of California, page 208

    Yola

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    Pronoun

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    she

    1. alternative form of shoo
      • 1788, A YOLA ZONG.:
        Jowane got leigheen, she pleast ame all, fowe—
        Joan set them a laughing, she pleased them all, how—

    References

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    • Charles Vallancey (1788), “Memoir of the Language, Manners and Customs of an Anglo-Saxon Colony Settled in the Baronies of Forth and Bargie, in the County of Wexford, Ireland, in 1167, 1168 and 1169.”, in The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy‎[9], volume 2, Royal Irish Academy, page 40
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