ella

See also: Appendix:Variations of "ella"

Aragonese

Etymology

From Latin illa, feminine of ille.

Pronoun

ella

1. she

Asturian

Etymology

From Latin illa, feminine of ille.

Pronoun

ella

1. she

Catalan

Etymology

Inherited from Latin illa, feminine of ille. Compare Occitan ela (and a medieval variant elha), French elle, Spanish ella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Northern) [ˈe̞.ʎə]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Central) [ˈe.ʎə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia, Northwestern) [ˈe.ʎa]

• Audio (Catalonia):

  (file)

Pronoun

ella (plural elles)

1. she

Declension

Catalan personal pronouns and clitics

number	person		nominative	proclitic		enclitic		possessive
				accusative	dative	accusative	dative
singular	1st	standard	jo, mi3	em, m’		-me, ’m		meu
		majestic1	nós	ens		-nos, ’ns		nostre
	2nd	standard	tu	et, t’		-te, ’t		teu
		formal1	vós	us		-vos, -us		vostre
		very formal2	vostè	el, l’	li	-lo, ’l	-li	seu
	3rd	m	ell	el, l’	li	-lo, ’l	-li	seu
		f	ella	la, l’4	li	-la	-li	seu
		n	―	ho	li	-ho	-li	seu
plural
	1st		nosaltres	ens		-nos, ’ns		nostre
	2nd	standard	vosaltres	us		-vos, -us		vostre
		formal2	vostès	els		-los, ’ls		seu
	3rd	m	ells	els		-los, ’ls		seu
		f	elles	les	els	-les	-los, ’ls	seu
3rd reflexive			si	es, s’		-se, ’s		seu
adverbial	ablative/genitive		―	en, n’	―	-ne, ’n	―
	locative			hi		-hi

¹ Behaves grammatically as plural.   ² Behaves grammatically as third person.
³ Only as object of a preposition.   ⁴ Not before unstressed (h)i-, (h)u-.

Corsican

Alternative forms

• edda, illa, idda

Etymology

From Latin illa, feminine form of ille (“that”), from Old Latin olle (“that”). Cognates include Italian ella and Spanish ella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛlːa/
• Hyphenation: el‧la

Pronoun

ella f

1. she
2. her (disjunctive)

See also

Corsican personal pronouns

number	person		nominative	disjunctive	dative	accusative
singular	1st		eiu	mè	mi
	2nd		tù	tè	ti
	3rd	m	ellu		li	u, l'
		f	ella			a, l'
plural	1st		noi		ci
	2nd		voi		vi
	3rd	m	elli		li	i, l'
		f	elle			e, l'

References

• “ella, illa, edda, idda” in INFCOR: Banca di dati di a lingua corsa

Faroese

Etymology

From Old Norse ella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɛtla], [ˈɪtla]
• (Suðuroy) IPA^(key): [ˈɪlːa]

Conjunction

ella

1. or

Fula

Etymology

From Arabic عِلَّة (ʕilla).

Noun

ella o

1. (Maasina, Pulaar) flaw, blemish, vice, defect

   elle (Maasina Plural)

   ellaaji (Pulaar Plural)

   allaaru (Maasina)

References

• D. Osborn, D. Dwyer, et J. Donohoe, Lexique Fulfulde (Maasina)-Anglais-Français: Une compilation basée sur racines et tirée de sources existantes, suivie de listes en anglais-fulfulde et français-fulfulde, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993.
• M. Niang (1997), Pulaar–English English–Pulaar Standard Dictionary, New York: Hippocrene Books

Icelandic

Etymology

From Old Norse ella, shortened from earlier elligar. Compare ellegar. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *aljaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɛtla]
• Rhymes: -ɛtla

Adverb

ella

1. else, or else, otherwise

   Synonyms: annars, ellegar

Conjunction

ella

1. or

   Synonyms: eða, eður, ellegar

Italian

Etymology

From Latin illa, feminine of ille (“that”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛl.la/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlla

Pronoun

ella f (plural elle, archaic plural elleno)

1. (uncommon, literary, subject form, animate) she

   Synonyms: lei, (inanimate) essa

Usage notes

• The term has largely fallen out of use in the spoken language, in favor of the oblique form lei.

See also

Italian personal pronouns

			nominative		atonic (clitic)11						tonic12
					accusative / dative-reflexive	accusative	dative		locative	partitive	prepositional-reflexive	oblique
singular
	first		io		mi, m', -mi, me9				―		―	me
	second		tu		ti, t', -ti, te9							te
	second formal / polite5		Lei, Ella8		―	La, -La, L'	Le, -Le					Lei
	third	m	lui, egli,8 ello,8 elli,3, 8 esso8		si,6 s', -si, se,9 ci13	lo, l', -lo, il4	glie9	gli, -gli, il4	ci, c', vi,1 v'1	ne, n'	sé	lui, esso8
		f	lei, ella,8 essa8			la, l', -la		le, -le, gli,2 -gli2				lei, essa8
plural
	first		noi		ci, c', -ci, ce,9 ne,4 n'4				―		―	noi
	second		voi, Voi7		vi, Vi,7 v', V',7 -vi, -Vi,7 ve9							voi, Voi7
	second formal / polite5		Loro		―	Le, -Le	Loro10					Loro
	third	m	loro	elli,3, 8 ellino,4, 8 eglino,4, 8 essi8	si, s', -si, se9	li, -li	loro,10 gli,2 -gli,2 glie9		ci, c', vi,1 v'1	ne, n'	sé	loro	essi8
		f		elle,3, 8 elleno,4, 8 esse8		le, -le							elle,8 esse8

¹ Formal.
² Informal.
³ Archaic.
⁴ Obsolete or literary.
⁵ Grammatically third person forms used semantically in the second person as a formal or polite way of addressing someone (with the first letter frequently capitalised as a sign of respect, and to distinguish them from third person subjects). Unlike the singular forms, the plural forms are mostly antiquated terms of formal address in the modern language, and second person plural pronouns are almost always used instead.
⁶ Also used as indefinite pronoun meaning “one”, and to form the passive.
⁷ Formal (capitalisation optional); in many regions, can refer to just one person (compare with French vous).
⁸ Traditional grammars still indicate the forms egli (animate), ello / ella (animate), esso / essa and their plurals as the nominative forms of the third person pronouns; outside of very formal or archaizing contexts, all such forms have been replaced by the obliques lui, lei, loro.
⁹ Forms used when followed by a third-person direct object proclitic (lo, la, li, le, or ne).
¹⁰ Used after verbs.
¹¹ Unstressed forms, stand alone forms are found proclitically (except dative loro / Loro), others enclitically (-mi, -ti, etc.).
¹² Disjunctive, emphatic oblique forms used as direct objects placed after verbs (or before them, chiefly in literary Italian), in exclamations, along prepositions (prepositional) and some adverbs (come, quanto, etc.); also used with a to create alternative emphatic dative forms.
¹³ Only in "ci si", replaces indefinite si (“one”) before reflexive si (“oneself”).

Anagrams

• alle

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *ɸalnati.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈe.l̪a/

Verb

·ella

1. unattested by itself; takes various preverbs to form verbs

Derived terms

It is not easy to clearly distinguish between derivatives of this root and derivatives of ·lá (from Proto-Celtic *layeti). See fo·ceird for derivatives of ·lá.

• ad·ella
• do·aidlea
• do·alla
• do·ecmalla
• do·ella
• fo·indlea
• sechmo·ella

Mutation

Mutation of ·ella

radical	lenition	nasalization
·ella (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	·ella	·n-ella

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Old Norse

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *aljaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂élyos.

Adverb

ella

1. otherwise, in the opposite case, if not, in other circumstances
2. apart from this
3. (introducing a main clause; adv. or conjunc.) otherwise, or else

Conjunction

ella

1. or, or else

Descendants

• Faroese: ella
• Icelandic: ella
• Norwegian Bokmål: eller
• Norwegian Nynorsk: eller
• Old Danish: ællær
  • Danish: eller
• Old Swedish: ælla, ællar
  • Swedish: eller

References

• “ella” in Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (ONP) at University of Copenhagen

Portuguese

Pronoun

ella f

1. pre-reform spelling (used until 1943 in Brazil and 1911 in Portugal) of ela

Sotho

Verb

ella

1. to move towards

Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Latin illa, feminine of ille.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /ˈeʝa/ [ˈe.ʝa]

• IPA^(key): /ˈeʝa/ [ˈe.ʝa] (Equatorial Guinea, most of Latin America and Spain)
• IPA^(key): /ˈeʎa/ [ˈe.ʎa] (rustic northern Spain, northern and central Andes Mountains (except central Ecuador), Bolivia, Paraguay, northeastern Argentina, Philippines)
• IPA^(key): /ˈeʃa/ [ˈe.ʃa] (Buenos Aires and environs)
• IPA^(key): /ˈeʒa/ [ˈe.ʒa] (central Ecuador, Santiago del Estero and environs, elsewhere in Pampas and southern Argentina, Uruguay)
• IPA^(key): /ˈea/ [ˈe.a] (northern Mexico, Yucatán, Central America (except Panama))

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

 

• Rhymes: -eʝa

• Rhymes: -eʝa (Equatorial Guinea, most of Latin America and Spain)
• Rhymes: -eʎa (rustic northern Spain, northern and central Andes Mountains (except central Ecuador), Bolivia, Paraguay, northeastern Argentina, Philippines)
• Rhymes: -eʃa (Buenos Aires and environs)
• Rhymes: -eʒa (central Ecuador, Santiago del Estero and environs, elsewhere in Pampas and southern Argentina, Uruguay)
• Rhymes: -ea (northern Mexico, Yucatán, Central America (except Panama))

• Syllabification: e‧lla

Pronoun

ella (plural ellas, masculine él, masculine plural ellos)

1. she, her (used subjectively and after prepositions)
2. it (used subjectively and after prepositions to refer to feminine nouns)

Related terms

• él
• ellas
• ellos

See also

Spanish personal pronouns

number	person			Nominative	Disjunctive	Dative	Accusative	Comitative
singular	1st			yo	mí	me		conmigo
	2nd	fam.		tú1, vos2	ti1, vos2	te		contigo
		m	for.	usted		le, se4	lo	—
		f					la
	3rd	m		él		le, se4	lo
		f		ella			la
		n		ello6			lo
plural	1st	m		nosotros		nos
		f		nosotras
	2nd	m	fam.5	vosotros		os
		f		vosotras
		m	for.	ustedes		les, se4	los
		f					las
	3rd	m		ellos		les, se4	los
		f		ellas			las
Reflexive				—	sí	se		consigo

1. Tuteo
2. Voseo
3. If le or les precedes lo, la, los, or las in a clause, it is replaced with se (e.g. se lo dije instead of *le lo dije).
4. Used primarily in Spain.
5. Only used in certain circumstances and rarely as a subject pronoun.

Further reading

• “él”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛɬa/

Adverb

ella

1. perhaps, maybe (colloquial form of efallai)