sie

See also się, and Sie

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English sien, from Old English sīgan (“to pass from a higher to a lower position, sink, descend, decline, fall, fall down, move towards a point, advance, go, go to, approach, ooze, run as matter, strain, filter, act as a filter”), from Proto-Germanic *sīganą, *sīhwaną (“to strain, drop”), from Proto-Indo-European *seik- (“to pour, strain”). Cognate with Dutch zijgen (“to filter”), German seihen (“to strain, sieve”), Icelandic síga (“to lower”).

Alternative forms

• sigh
• sey (Scotland)

Pronunciation

• IPA: /saɪ/
• Rhymes: -aɪ

Verb

sie (third-person singular simple present sies, present participle sying, simple past and past participle sied)

1. (intransitive) To sink; fall; drop.
2. (intransitive) To fall, as in a swoon; faint.
3. (intransitive, dialectal) To drop, as water; trickle.
4. (transitive) To sift.
5. (transitive, dialectal) To strain, as milk; filter.

Noun

sie (plural sies)

1. A drop.

Related terms

• sile

Etymology 2

Alternative forms

• shi

Pronunciation

• Homophones: c, cee, sea, see

Pronoun

sie third person singular, gender-neutral, nominative case (accusative hir, possessive adjective hir, possessive noun hirs, reflexive hirself)

1. (neologism) Gender-neutral (or multigendered) subject pronoun, grammatically equivalent to the gendered pronouns he and she, or singular they
   • 2010 September 16, Jessica Freely, Amaranth and Ash^[1], La Vergne: Lightning Source, ISBN 9781461136620, page 101:

     "You must be Ash," sie said, hir voice a shade deeper than Amaranth's.

   • 2011 May 19, Ken Wickham, The Other Genders: Androgyne, Genderqueer, Non-Binary Gender Variant^[2], CreateSpace, ISBN 9781461136620, page 7:

     Sie may feel that hir actual identity of hir gender is supposed to be both/neither male or female, outside of gender, third gender, beyond gender, absence of gender, mixing gender, changing gender, or all genders.

   • 2011 August 16, Petra Kuppers, Disability Culture and Community Performance: Find a Strange and Twisted Shape^[3], New York: Palgrave Macmillan, LCC PN1590.H36 K87 2011, ISBN 9780230298279, LCCN 2011012058, page 18:

     When I asked hir about hir preferred self-identification in this scene, sie offered me this language, 'sie sharply performs the hotness of teasing all the audience from the edge-space of androgyny.'

Synonyms

• (gender-neutral): he or she, he/she, s/he, (s)he
• (gender-neutral): (singular) they
• (gender-neutral): (neologism) e, ey, shi, ze, per

Anagrams

• I'se

See also

• other attested and proposed gender-neutral pronouns

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Finnish

Pronoun

sie (stem siu-)

1. (personal, dialectal) you (singular; in archaic English: thou).

Synonyms

• sinä (standard Finnish)
• sä (colloquial)
• sää (dialectal)

Anagrams

• ies, sei

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German

Etymology

related to English she.

Pronunciation

• (standard) IPA: /ziː/

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iː

• (colloquially in unstressed position) IPA: /zə/

Pronoun

sie f

1. (personal) she.
2. (personal) it (when the object/article/thing/animal etc., referred to, is feminine (die)).

Inflection

• Nominative: sie
• Accusative: sie
• Dative: ihr
• Genitive: ihrer

The genitive case ihrer is more and more rarely used in modern German.

• While the genitive of Personal Pronouns does express ownership, it must not be confused with possessive pronouns. While possessive pronouns such as ihr are put in front of the noun they relate to and follow the inflection rules of adjectives, the genitive form of personal pronouns only has got one from, which is not further inflected. Additionally, personal pronouns in Genitive can be put after the word they relate to.

Pronoun

sie (pl.)

1. (personal) they.
2. (personal) you, used to refer to any number of persons in formal conversations

Inflection

• Nominative: sie
• Accusative: sie
• Dative: ihnen
• Genitive: ihrer

The genitive case ihrer is more and more rarely used in modern German.

• While the genitive of Personal Pronouns does express ownership, it must not be confused with possessive pronouns. While possessive pronouns such as ihr are put in front of the noun they relate to and follow the inflection rules of adjectives, the genitive form of a personal pronoun has only one from, which is not further inflected. Additionally, personal pronouns in the genitive can be put after the word they relate to.

Usage notes

• This pronoun is also used to refer to people in formal conversation, either one or more. In most contexts (except for example among pupils and students, or members of a small sports club) it is considered rude to refer to someone with du unless offered. It is used if you refer to somebody with his last name. It might happen in higher grades of school that teachers will use it with the first name when talking to a pupil. In written conversation this polite use of sie has to be capitalised, even when inflected: see Sie.

See also

German personal pronouns

		singular	plural
1st person		ich	wir
2nd person	familiar	du	ihr
	polite	Sie
3rd person	m	er	sie
	f	sie
	n	es

Anagrams

• Eis
• Sie

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Karelian

Pronoun

sie

(Stem: si-)

1. (personal) you (sg)

Synonyms

• sinä

---

Kven

Pronoun

sie

1. (personal) you (sg)

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Middle Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA: /siə/, /si/

Pronoun

sie

1. Alternative form of si. (both feminine singular and all plural)

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Old Saxon

Alternative forms

• sia

Pronoun

sie m and f

1. she (accusative)
2. they

Descendants

• Low German: se

Declension

Old Saxon personal pronoun declensions

Personal pronouns
Singular	1.	2.	3. m	3. f	3. n
Nominative	ik	thū	hē	sīu	it
Accusative	mī, mik	thī, thik	ina	sīa
Dative	mī	thī	imu	iru	it
Genitive	mīn	thīn	is	ira	is
Dual	1.	2.	-	-	-
Nominative	wit	git	-	-	-
Accusative	unk	ink	-	-	-
Dative
Genitive	unkaro	inka	-	-	-
Plural	1.	2.	3. m	3. f	3. n
Nominative	wī	gī	sīa	sīa	sīu
Accusative	ūs	īu, gīu
Dative			im
Genitive	ūsar	īuwar, gīuwar	iro