she

👩

Meaning

1. The female (typically) person or animal previously mentioned or implied.
2. A ship or boat.
3. A country, or sometimes a city, province, planet, etc.
4. Any machine or thing, such as a car, a computer, or (poetically) a season.
5. A person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (used in a work, along with or in place of he, as an indefinite pronoun).

👨

that woman

it said

3 sg.

it became

it opened

other party

said person

that person

that gentleman

person in question

same person

that guy

third person pronoun

it bit

it did

it dug

it found

it heard

it killed

it poured

it struck

it took

it was

it went

jenny-

it happened

it is

lady-love

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʃiː/

From Middle English sche, scho, hyo, ȝho (“she”), whence also Yorkshire dialectal shoo (“she”), Scots she, sho (“she”). Probably from Old English hēo (whence dialectal English hoo), with an irregular change in stress from hēo to heō /hjoː/, then a development from /hj-/ to /ç/ to /ʃ-/, 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 (“the or that", occasionally "she”) is also possible, though less likely. 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. 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, but both hēo and sēo also have rare variants (hīe and sīe) that may give modern English /iː/.