you
/jə/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 6.98 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
pron
The person spoken to or written to, as an object. (Replacing thee; originally as a mark of respect.)
pron
Anyone, one; an unspecified individual or group of individuals (as subject or object).
Example Sentences
- "Both of you should get ready now."
- "I'll look up you and your sister."
- "And Ioſeph ſaid vnto them, That is it that I ſpake vnto you, ſaying, Ye are ſpies."
- "If I may counsaile you, some day or two / Your Highnesse shall repose you at the Tower [...]."
- "And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city."
- "'Draw near, and wash you in the living flames, and take their virtue into your poor frames in all its virgin strength[.]'"
Etymology
From Middle English you, yow, ȝow (object case of ye), from Old English ēow (“you”, dative case of ġē), from Proto-West Germanic *iwwi (“you”, dative case of *jiʀ), from Proto-Germanic *iwwiz (“you”, dative case of *jīz), the Western form of Proto-Germanic *izwiz (“you”, dative case of *jūz), from Proto-Indo-European *yúHs (“you”, plural). Cognate with Scots you (“you”), Saterland Frisian jou (“you”), West Frisian jo (“you”), Low German jo, joe and oe (“you”), Dutch jou and u (“you”), German euch (“you”), Middle High German eu, iu (“you”, object pronoun), Latin vōs (“you”), Avestan 𐬬𐬋 (vō, “you”), Ashkun yë̃ (“you”), Kamkata-viri šo (“you”), Sanskrit यूयम् (yūyám, “you”). See usage notes. Ye, you and your are cognate with Dutch jij/je, jou, jouw; Low German ji, jo/ju, jug and German ihr, euch and euer respectively. Ye is also cognate with Danish I and archaic Swedish I. Compare the shift to the second-person singular informal Spanish vos, historically a formal pronoun.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: you, ēow, *iwwi, *iwwiz, *izwiz, *yúHs
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /jə/
- British English: /ju/
Usage
- American usage
- Colloquial
- Transitive verb
- Countable
- Uncountable
Inflected Forms
your (determiner, possessive)
yours (possessive, pronoun)
yourself (reflexive, singular)
yourselves (plural, reflexive)
ye (alternative, archaic)
ya (alternative, informal)
yah (alternative, informal)
yer (alternative, informal)
yeh (alternative, informal)
y' (alternative, informal)
yo (alternative, informal)
yu (alternative, informal)