he

Pronunciation

• (UK, Canada) enPR: hē, IPA^(key): /ˈhiː/, (unstressed form) IPA^(key): /hi/, /i/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (US) enPR: hē, IPA^(key): /hi/, [hi], [çi], (unstressed form) IPA^(key): /i/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iː

Pronoun

he (third-person singular, masculine, nominative case, oblique him, reflexive himself, possessive his)

1. (personal) A male person or animal already known or implied.
   • 1620, Giovanni Bocaccio, translated by John Florio, The Decameron, Containing an Hundred Pleaſant Nouels: Wittily Diſcourſed, Betweene Seuen Honourable Ladies, and Three Noble Gentlemen‎, Isaac Iaggard, →ISBN, Nouell 8, The Eighth Day:

     […] purſued his vnneighbourly purpoſe in ſuch ſort: that hee being the ſtronger perſwader, and ſhe (belike) too credulous in beleeuing or elſe ouer-feeble in reſiſting, from priuate imparlance, they fell to action; and continued their cloſe fight a long while together, vnſeene and vvithout ſuſpition, no doubt to their equall ioy and contentment.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 77:

     "It was he we saw the tracks of down by Rausand hill."

   • July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Rises

     Though Bane’s sing-song voice gives his pronouncements a funny lilt, he doesn’t have any of the Joker’s deranged wit, and Nolan isn’t interested in undercutting his seriousness for the sake of a breezier entertainment.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:he.
2. (personal, sometimes proscribed, see usage notes) They; he or she (a person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant).

   The rulebook clearly states that "if any student is caught cheating, he will be expelled", and you were caught cheating, were you not, Anna?

   • 2010, Tom Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, The Rule of Law, Penguin Books, →ISBN, Preface, page ix:

     First, to avoid the cumbrous ‘he or she’ and ‘his or hers’, and the ungrammatical ‘they’ when used in the singular, I have mostly stuck to saying ‘he’ or ‘his’. I hope that this will be understood in an unchauvinistic, gender-neutral way.

3. (personal, sometimes proscribed) It; an animal whose gender is unknown.
4. A genderless object regarded as masculine, such as certain stars or planets (e.g. Sun, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter) or certain ships.

   Antonyms: she, it

   • 1770, A Mathematical Miscellany in Four Parts, 3rd edition, page 125:

     JUPITER is the largest of all the Planets, his Orbit lies between the Orbits of the Earth and Mars, and at the cast Distance of 426 Millions of Miles from the Sun, he goes round him in 11 Years, 314 Days and 12 Hours; […]

   • 2019, Sabaton, Bismarck:

     He [= the ship Bismarck] was made to rule the waves across the seven seas […]

Determiner

he

1. (African-American Vernacular) Synonym of his

Noun

he (countable and uncountable, plural hes)

1. (uncountable) The game of tag, or it, in which the player attempting to catch the others is called "he".
2. The player who chases and attempts to catch the others in this game.
3. (informal) A male.

   Is your cat a he or a she?

Alternative forms

• hay
• hei
• hey

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /heɪ/

Noun

he

1. The name of the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).
   • 1658, Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society, published 2007, page 210:

     The same number in the Hebrew mysteries and Cabalistical accounts was the character of Generation; declared by the Letter He, the fifth in their Alphabet.

   • 1988, Milorad Pavić, translated by Christina Pribićević-Zorić, Dictionary of the Khazars, Vintage, published 1989, page 7:

     This Nehama claimed that in his own hand he recognized the consonant “he” of his Hebrew language, and in the letter “vav” his own male soul.

2. The name of the first letter of the Old South Arabian abjad.

See also

• Appendix:Hebrew alphabet

Further reading

• He (letter) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Interjection

he

1. (uncommon, usually reduplicated) An expression of laughter.

   Synonyms: ha, hehe (more common)

   • 1897, Charles Dudley Warner, Hamilton Wright Mabie, Charles Henry Warner, Lucia Isabella Gilbert Runkle, Library of the World's Best Literature: A-Z, page 1791:

     If e'er he went into excess, / 'Twas from a somewhat lively thirst; / But he who would his subjects bless, / Odd's fish!—must wet his whistle first; / And so from every cask they got, / Our king did to himself allot / At least a pot. / Sing ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! / That's the kind of king for me.

   • 1921, Norman Davey, The Pilgrim of a Smile, page 247:

     "Well, what is your next tale?" said Sumner, a little brusquely. "He, he! he, he! . . . he, he!" chuckled the bottle, "the text tale I'm going to tell you in a very funny one. It will make you laugh. There's a lady in it—he, he!—a very comic affair."

Noun

he f (plural hes)

1. he (fifth letter of various Semitic alphabets)

Alternative forms

• haig

Verb

he

1. first-person singular present indicative of haver

Derived terms

• he ho

Synonyms

• hi (Namumi)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhe/, [ˈhe̞]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -e
• Hyphenation^(key): he

Pronoun

he

1. (personal) they (plural, only of people)
2. (respectful) he, she, one, (singular) they (of a single human being, like hän)
3. they (in indirect speech: referring to the subjects of the main clause, regardless of whether they are human beings or not, i.e. logophoric pronoun)

See also

Further reading

• “1. he”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2024-10-09

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhe(ː)/, [ˈhe̞(ː)]
• Rhymes: -e
• Hyphenation^(key): he

Noun

he

1. he (fifth letter of the Hebrew and Phoenician scripts and the Northwest Semitic abjad)

Usage notes

• Which dative is employed depends on dialect, not on function.
• Some dialects might consider any of the inflected forms obsolete.

Derived terms

(Proverbs)

• mwana ndaheanagwo

Related terms

(Nouns)

• kĩhe(e)o class 7
• maheeo class 6

Usage notes

Informally, both men and women use this question-marking particle. When speaking formally, however, only women use it. In a formal setting, men use huwó, hwo, or huŋwó.

Synonyms

• huwó (used by men)

Usage notes

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /heː/

Pronoun

he (accusative him or hine, genitive his or hisen, possessive determiner his)

2. Third-person singular masculine pronoun: he
   • 14th century, Chaucer, General Prologue:

     Benynge he was, and wonder diligent

     Kind he was, and very diligent

3. it; used also of inanimate objects
4. (impersonal) Third-person singular impersonal pronoun: one; you

References

• “he, pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Pronoun

he (accusative hem or he, genitive heres or heren, possessive determiner here)

2. Third-person plural nominative pronoun: they
   • p. 1154, “AD 1137”, in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MS. Laud Misc. 636, continuation), Peterborough, folio 89, verso; republished at Oxford: Digital Bodleian, 2018 February 8:

     Mani þusen hi drapen mid hungær.

     Many thousands they overcame with hunger.

3. Third-person plural accusative pronoun: them

Pronoun

he

1. Alternative form of heo (“she”)

Interjection

he

1. Alternative form of hey (“hey”)

Noun

he

1. Alternative form of heye (“hedge”)

Adjective

he (comparative her, superlative hest)

1. Alternative form of heigh (“high”)

Verb

he (third-person singular simple present heth, present participle hende, first-/third-person singular past indicative and past participle hed)

1. Alternative form of hyen (“to go quickly”)

Declension

Declension

Descendants

• Middle English: he, hee, ȝe, e, hey, hi, hie, hye, heo, ho, hæ, ha, a
  • English: he
  • Scots: he
  • Yola: hea, he, hey, hay

Declension

Descendants

• German Low German: he

Adverb

he

1. (literary) here is [with (suffixed) accusative or aquí or ahí or allí]
2. (literary) behold (+ aquí)

Noun

he f (plural hes)

1. he; the Hebrew letter ה

Verb

he

1. inflection of haber:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative
   3. second-person singular voseo imperative

References

Verb

he (present her, preterite hedde, supine hett, imperative he)

1. (regional, colloquial, northern) to put

   Synonym: (Hälsingland region) häva

   He den på bordet

   Put it on the table

   Häv/He på stereon

   Put on the stereo (Hälsingland/further north)

Pronoun

he n

1. (regional, Northern Sweden, Ostrobothnia) it

Interjection

he! (Baybayin spelling ᜑᜒ)

1. Alternative form of tse

Noun

he (Baybayin spelling ᜑᜒ) (historical)

1. Alternative spelling of ge

Derived terms

See also

Noun

he (definite accusative heyi, plural heler)

1. The name of the Latin-script letter H/h.

See also

• (Latin-script letter names) harf; a, be, ce, çe, de, e, fe, ge, yumuşak ge, he, ı, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, ö, pe, re, se, şe, te, u, ü, ve, ye, ze

Noun

he

1. Letter of the Arabic alphabet: ه

Particle

he

1. Alternative form of ha

Interjection

he

1. Alternative form of ha

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hē/

Verb

he

1. to come across, to come by

   Mo rí ẹ̀bùn he, mo sì bẹ̀rẹ̀ sí í ṣí i. ― I came across a gift and started to open it.

   • 1995?, “‘Níwọ̀n Bí A Ti Ní Iṣẹ́-òjíṣẹ́ Yìí, Àwa Kò Juwọ́sílẹ̀’”, in ÀKÁ ÌWÉ ORÍ ÍŃTÁNẸ́Ẹ̀TÌ ti Watchtower‎:

     Ìṣòro mìíràn tí mo dojúkọ, yàtọ̀ sí ti èdè, ni àníyàn léraléra pé kí àwọn ọlọ́pàá má he mí.

     Another problem I faced, apart from the language, was the constant concern over being picked up by the police.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hè/

Verb

hè

1. (Ikalẹ) (transitive) Ikalẹ form of sè (“to cook”)