he | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

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Old English he, pronoun of the third person (see paradigm of Old English third person pronoun below), from Proto-Germanic *hi- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch he, hi, Dutch hy, Old High German he), from PIE *ki-, variant of root *ko-, the "this, here" (as opposed to "that, there") root, and thus the source of the third person pronouns in Old English. The feminine, hio, was replaced in early Middle English by forms from other stems (see she), while the h- wore off Old English neuter hit to make modern it. The Proto-Germanic root also is the source of the first element in German heute "today," literally "the day" (compare Old English heodæg).

The paradigm in Old English was: MASCULINE SINGULAR: he (nominative), hine (accusative), his (genitive), him (dative); FEMININE SINGULAR: heo, hio (nom.), hie, hi (acc.), hire (gen. and dat.); NEUTER SINGULAR: hit (nom. and acc.), his (gen.), him (dat.); PLURAL: (all genders) hie, hi (nom. and acc.), hira, heora (gen.), him, heom (dat.).

Pleonastic use with the noun ("Mistah Kurtz, he dead") is attested from late Old English. With animal words, meaning "male" (he-goat, etc.) from c. 1300.

he-man (n.)

"especially masculine fellow," 1832, originally among U.S. pioneers, from he + man (n.).

s/he (pron.)

artificial genderless pronoun, attested from 1977; from he + she.

he-he

imitative of laughter, Old English.

Ha ha and he he getacniað hlehter on leden and on englisc. [Ælfric, "Grammar," c. 1000]

her (objective case)

Old English hire "her," third person singular feminine dative pronoun, which replaced accusative hie beginning in 10c. See he. Cognate with Old Frisian hiri, Middle Dutch hore, Dutch haar, Old High German iru, German ihr.

hin (pron.)

Old English hine, accusative of he; replaced by dative him in early Middle English. Cognate with German ihn. It is said to survive somewhat in southwest English and Kentish dialect.

him (pron.)

Old English him, originally dative masculine and neuter of he, from Proto-Germanic *hi- (see he). Beginning 10c. it replaced hine as masculine accusative, a process completed by 15c. The dative roots of the -m ending are retained in German (ihm) and Dutch (hem). Hine persists, barely, as the southern England dialectal 'un, 'n for "him."

*ko-

Proto-Indo-European root, the stem of demonstrative pronoun meaning "this."

It forms all or part of: cis-; et cetera; harass; he; hence; her; here; him; his; hither; it.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek ekeinos "that person;" Latin cis "on this side," citra (adv.) "on this side;" Old Church Slavonic si, Lithuanian is, Hittite ki "this;" Old English hider, Gothic hidre "hither."

she (pron.)

mid-12c., probably evolving from Old English seo, sio (accusative sie), fem. of demonstrative pronoun (masc. se) "the," from PIE root *so- "this, that" (see the). The Old English word for "she" was heo, hio, however by 13c. the pronunciation of this had converged by phonetic evolution with he "he," which apparently led to the fem. demonstrative pronoun being used in place of the pronoun (compare similar development in Dutch zij, German sie, Greek he, etc.). The original h- survives in her. A relic of the Old English pronoun is in Manchester-area dialectal oo "she." As a noun meaning "a female," she is attested from 1530s.

his (pron.)

Old English his (genitive of he), from Proto-Germanic *hisa (source also of Gothic is, Old Saxon is, German es). Originally also the neuter possessive pronoun, but in English it was replaced in that sense c. 1600 by its. In Middle English, hisis was tried for the absolute pronoun (compare her/hers), but it failed to stick. For dialectal his'n, see her.

In 16c.-17c. commonly used in place of a genitive inflection after nouns whose nominative ends in -s (for example, "When this Book became a particular book, that is, when Moses his book was divided into five parts, I cannot trace." [Donne, "Essayes in Divinity," "Exodus," 1651]). Here it is perhaps an expanded vocalized form of 's, originally -es. This tendency began in late Old English and was obsolete from c. 1750.

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