she

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See also Appendix:Variations of "she"

Contents

English [edit]

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Wikipedia

Wikipedia has an article on:

Wikipedia

Etymology [edit]

From Middle English sche, hye (“she”), from earlier scho, hyo, ȝho (“she”), a phonetic development of Old English hēo, hīo (“she”), from Proto-Germanic *hijō (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this, here”). Cognate with English dialectal hoo (“she”), Scots scho, shu (“she”), West Frisian hja (“she”), North Frisian jü (“she”), Danish hun (“she”), Swedish hon (“she”). More at he.

Despite the similarity in appearance, the Old English feminine demonstrative sēo (“that”) is probably not the source of Middle English forms in sch-. Rather, the sch- developed out of a change in stress upon hío resulting in hió, spelt ȝho (ȝh = hȝ, compare wh = hw, lh = hl, etc.), and the h was palatalised into the sh sound. Similar alteration can be seen the name Shetland, from Old Norse Hjaltland; ȝho is the immediate parent form of Middle English scho and sche.

Pronunciation [edit]

Pronoun [edit]

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

  1. (personal) A female person or animal.
    I asked Mary, but she said that she didn't know.
  2. (personal) A ship or country.
  3. (personal, affectionate) Machinery such as cars and steam engines.
    She is a beautiful boat, isn't she?
  4. (personal, nonstandard) he/she. used arbitrarily with he for an indefinite person in order to be gender-neutral.
    • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 1990:
      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.

Translations [edit]

person
ship, country

Noun [edit]

she (plural shes)

  1. A female.
    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare — Shakespeare.
    • 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.

See also [edit]

English personal pronouns
Number Person Gender Subject Objective Reflexive Possessive adjective Possessive pronoun
Singular First — I me myself my mine
Second — you,
thou (archaic)		 you,
thee (archaic)		 yourself,
thyself (archaic)
theeself (archaic)		 your,
thy (archaic)		 yours,
thine (archaic)
Third Masculine he him himself his
Feminine she her herself her hers
Neuter it itself its its (rare)
Gender-neutral they them themself their theirs
Plural First — we us ourselves our ours
Second — you,
ye (archaic)		 you yourselves your yours
Third — they them themselves their theirs
Indefinite Third — one oneself one's —

Statistics [edit]

Anagrams [edit]

Mandarin [edit]

Romanization [edit]

she

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

Usage notes [edit]

English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

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