it

Alternative forms

• hit (dialectal)
• i' (colloquial)
• itt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English it, hit ( > dialectal English hit (“it”)), from Old English hit (“it”), from Proto-West Germanic *hit, from Proto-Germanic *hit (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this, here”). Cognate with West Frisian it (“it”), Saterland Frisian et, 't (“it”), Dutch het (“it”), Low German it (“it”), German es (“it”). Compare also Gothic 𐌹𐍄𐌰 (ita, “it”), Latin cis (“on this”), hic (“this”). More at he.

Pronunciation

• (stressed)
  • (Received Pronunciation, General American, GenAus) IPA^(key): /ɪt/ enPR: ĭt

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

  • (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ɘt/
  • Rhymes: -ɪt
• (unstressed)
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪt/, [ɪ̈t], [ɪt]
  • Rhymes: -ɪt
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /ət/, [ɪ̈t], [ɪ̈ʔ], enPR: ət
  • (GenAus) IPA^(key): /ət/
  • (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ɘt/
• Homophone: at (unstressed) (General American, General Australian)

Pronoun

it (subjective and objective it, reflexive and intensive itself, possessive determiner and pronoun its, plural subjective they, plural objective case them)

1. The third-person singular neuter personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, abstract entity, or non-human living thing.

   Take this book and put it on the shelf.

   Take each day as it comes.

   I found a poor little cat. It seems to be half starving.

   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     It is not a pen. It is a book.

     Audio (US):

     (file)

   • 2018 August 6, “Brief Introduction of Nansi”, in Nansi District Office, Tainan City‎, archived from the original on 16 February 2022:

     The Nansi District was formerly known as the "Jiaba Community", and was one of the early territories of the Taivoan, as well as where the Zou resided. Later, due to the invasion of the Siraya tribe, the community members later migrated out to regions such as Gongguan, Paoziliao (Kaohsiung County), and Daciouyuan. During the time of the Japanese occupation, because of its location at the west of the "Nanzihsian River", it was therefore renamed Nansi ("si" meaning "west"). A village and village hall were established here, under the governance of Sinhua District of Tainan Province. After the war in 1945, it was renamed Nansi Township, and was changed to Nansi District after the merging of Tainan City and County on December 25th, 2010.

2. A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a baby or child, especially of unknown gender.

   She took the baby and held it in her arms.

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter IV, in Jane Eyre:

     A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction.

   • 1859, Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White‎:

     I could only encourage Mrs. Clements to speak next of Anne's early days […] "There was nobody else, sir, to take the little helpless creature in hand," replied Mrs. Clements. "The wicked mother seemed to hate it—as if the poor baby was in fault!—from the day it was born. My heart was heavy for the child, and I made the offer to bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own."
     "Did Anne remain entirely under your care from that time?"
     "Not quite entirely, sir. Mrs. Catherick had her whims and fancies about it at times, and used now and then to lay claim to the child, as if she wanted to spite me for bringing it up.

   • 2005, Marcus Zusak, The Book Thief, part 10:

     The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn't quite managed.

3. (obsolete) An affectionate third-person singular personal pronoun.
   • 1890, George Manville Fenn, Black Blood:

     " […] It's my belief that you don't know your own mind."
     "I don't, dear," said Hulda, nestling to him.
     "Why, what a puss it is!" cried Sir Philip, kissing her tenderly.

   • 1897, Olive Pratt Rayner (Grant Allen), The Type-Writer Girl

     She caught my eye, and laughed. “What a funny girl it is!” she cried. “You are so comical! But it isn't the least use your trying to frighten me. I can see the twinkle in your big black eyes; and I like you in spite of your trying to be horrid. Do you know, I liked you from the first moment I saw you.”

   • 1905, The Harvard Monthly, volumes 39-40, page 183:

     WILLIAM: You don't like me better?
     CLARA: Indeed I do.
     WILLIAM (laughing): Well, what a dear girl it is.
     CLARA (flinging her arms around his neck with suddenly disclosed passion): Oh, I do love you!

4. (chiefly derogatory, offensive) A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to an animate referent who is transgender or non-binary.
   • 1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure

     Next morning bought her [a drag queen] breakfast & she asked for a couple dollars to get a drink. Gave her $3, walked her to a bar. […] Some teenage boys watched us walking & began shouting. When I left her at the bar door & kissed her goodbye, they began shouting "Ugh! You kissed it!!"

   • 1993, Bruce Coville, Aliens Ate My Homework, pages 72–73:

     "Oh, don't be silly. I am neither male nor female. I'm a farfel." […] "It. Refer to me as an it."
     "That seems pretty rude," I said nervously.
     "Not as rude as calling me a he or a she," it said.

   • 2024 January 16, Matteo Garofalo, “Singular Purpose: Calculating the Degree of Ethno-Religious Over-representation in the USNo-Fly List”, in International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy:

     The individual known as Maia Arson Crimew was born as Tillie Kottmann on 7 August 1999 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Kottmann/Crimew has expressed on its website a desire to be referred to by ‘it’ pronouns (Crimew 2021), so this article will interchangeably refer to it by its preferred terms as either ‘Maia Arson Crimew’ or ‘it’.
     Crimew is a well-known figure among hacking and cybersecurity circles. It has either taken credit for or been attributed to hacks from several major multinational corporations, including […]

5. Refers to someone being identified, often on the phone, but not limited to this situation.

   It's me, John.

   Is it her?

   It is I, your king.

6. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent as the subject of an impersonal verb or statement (known as the dummy pronoun, dummy it or weather it).

   It is nearly 10 o’clock.

   It’s 10:45.

   It’s very cold today.

   It’s lonely without you.

7. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent, or with unstated but contextually implied referent, in various short idioms or expressions.

   rough it

   live it up

   stick it out

   1. Referring to a desirable quality or ability, or quality of being successful, fashionable or in vogue.

      After all these years, she still has it.

      • 2021, Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, Liveright Publishing, →ISBN:

        Later that night, a friend told Brady, “Still got it.” “Never lost it,” he replied. THAT WAS MOSTLY TRUE. But the 2013 season ended with the Patriots coaches wondering whether Brady's skills were in a subtle but irrevocable decline […]

   2. Referring to sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.

      I caught them doing it.

      Are you getting it regularly?

      • 1968, Dear Doctor Hip Pocrates; advice your family doctor never gave you, page 5:

        Is man really the only animal who does "it" face to face?

      • 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, →OCLC, section I, page 10:

        The great advantage of English public school life lies of course in the quality of tutelage it provides. Adrian had received a decent and broad English education in the area of his loins. […] He had quickly happened upon the truth which many lonely contemporaries would never discover, the truth that everybody, simply everybody, was panting for it and could, with patience, be shown that they were panting for it. So Adrian grabbed what was to hand and had the time of his life genitally – focusing exclusively on his own gender of course, for this was 1973 and girls had not yet been invented.

8. (uncountable) Sex appeal, especially that which goes beyond physical appearance.
   • 1904, Rudyard Kipling, Mrs Bathurst‎:

     'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street

   • 1927, Dorothy Parker, “Madame Glyn Lectures on 'It,' with Illustrations”, in The New Yorker, published 1927 November 26; republished in Brendan Gill, editor, The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York: Penguin, 1976, pages 464-468:

     And she had It. It, hell; she had Those.

9. The impersonal pronoun, used as a placeholder for a delayed subject, or less commonly, object; known as the dummy pronoun (according to some definitions), anticipatory it or, more formally in linguistics, a syntactic expletive. The delayed subject is commonly a to-infinitive, a gerund, or a noun clause introduced by a subordinating conjunction.

   It is easy to see how she would think that.

   (with the infinitive clause headed by to see)

   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     "I know now!" said I. "I have seen this in your face a long while."
     "No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is to read a face!"

   I find it odd that you would say that.

   (with the noun clause introduced by that)

   It is hard seeing you so sick.

   (with the gerund seeing)

   He saw to it that everyone would vote for him.

   (with the noun clause introduced by that)

   It is not clear if the report was true.

   (with the noun clause introduced by if)

10. All or the end; something after which there is no more.

    Are there more students in this class, or is this it?

    That's it—I'm not going to any more candy stores with you.

11. (obsolete) Followed by an omitted and understood relative pronoun: That which; what.
    • 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, II.2:

      In briefe, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it [= it which] wee call Happinesse, and this doe I enjoy [...].

Determiner

it

1. (obsolete) Its.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 25:5:

     That which groweth of it owne accord of thy haruest, thou ſhalt not reape, neither gather the grapes of thy Uine vndreſſed: for it is a yeere of reſt vnto the land.

     replaced by "its" in the 1769 Oxford Standard Text

Noun

it (plural its)

1. One who is neither a he nor a she; a creature; a dehumanized being.
   • 1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, chapter 1, in Bulldog Drummond:

     His master glanced up quickly, and removed the letter from his hands. "I'm surprised at you, James," he remarked severely. "A secretary should control itself. Don't forget that the perfect secretary is an it: an automatic machine—a thing incapable of feeling.…"

   • 1995, Neil Weiner, Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, Shattered innocence, page 8:

     Too often, children become an "it" in their homes and their humanness is devalued.

3. The person who chases and tries to catch the other players in the playground game of tag.

   In the next game, Adam and Tom will be it…

   • 1896, Clifton Johnson, “Odds”, in What They Say in New England (non-fiction), Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Lee and Shepard Publishers, page 66:

     When you play hi-spy, and are “it,” and want to know where the others have hid, take a stick and put it up on end and let it fall. If it falls three times in the same direction, that shows you the way to go to find the hiders.

   • 2000, Katherine T. Thomas, Amelia M. Lee, Jerry R. Thomas, Physical education for children, page 464:

     When there are only two children left who haven't been tagged, I will stop the game, and we will start over with those children starting as the Its.

4. (British) A game of tag.

   Let's play it at breaktime.

5. (informal) A desirable characteristic, as being fashionable.

   Man, he's really got it.

   She's the it girl, at least for this Fall.

6. (informal) Sexual intercourse.

   OMG, they were doing it in the storage room.

7. (informal) Sex appeal.

   She really has it going on.

8. Alternative letter-case form of It (“force in the vitalist approach of Georg Groddeck”)
   • 1988, Frederic D. Homer, The Interpretation of Illness, Purdue University Press, →ISBN, page 27:

     For Groddeck, the it is given, unknowable, and he does not try to conceptualize drives or forces. Early life and sexuality permeate […]

9. Alternative letter-case form of It (“the id”)
   • 2015, Charis Charalampous, Rethinking the Mind-Body Relationship in Early Modern Literature, Philosophy, and Medicine: The Renaissance of the Body, Routledge, →ISBN, page 36:

     […] thus reversing the roles of the I and the it, the former now occupying the place of the latter and vice versa. An awareness of our bisubjective nature (it and me) requires thus an I as a third term that slides between  […]

Adjective

it (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) Most fashionable, popular, or in vogue.
   • 2007 September, Vibe, volume 15, number 9, page 202:

     Going away for the weekend and feel the need to profile en route? This is the "it" bag.

   • 2010, David Germain, Hilarious ‘Kick-Ass’ delivers bloody fun, Associated Press:

     With Hit Girl, Moretz is this year's It Girl, alternately sweet, savage and scary.

   • 2021 October 4, Robert P, “Are Golden Goose Sneakers Worth It? My Honest Review Of Golden Goose Sneakers”, in Gold Talk Club‎, archived from the original on 15 July 2024:

     These Italian made sneakers quickly became an it shoe and the trend is not going anywhere any time soon!

References

• “it”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “it”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• TI, T&I, t͞i, Ti., ti

Etymology

From Proto-Turkic *ï̄t (“dog”).

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

it (definite accusative iti, plural itlər)

1. dog

See also

• köpək

Further reading

• “it” in Obastan.com.

Noun

it

1. fire

References

• Rodolfo Maruca Sosa, La nación charrúa (1957)

Noun

it

1. name

Etymology

From Proto-Turkic *it, *ït.

Noun

it

1. dog

Alternative forms

• id

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪt̪ˠ/

Contraction

it (triggers lenition)

1. (Munster) Contraction of i do (“in your”).

   Buail it phóca é.

   Put it in your pocket.

Alternative forms

• hit (dialects without H-dropping)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /it/
• Hyphenation: it

References

Further reading

• it at majstro.com

Etymology

From Proto-Turkic *ɨt.

Noun

it

1. dog, hound

References

• N. A. Baskakov, S.M. Šapšala, editor (1973), “it”, in Karaimsko-Russko-Polʹskij Slovarʹ [Karaim-Russian-Polish Dictionary], Moscow: Moskva, →ISBN

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /it/, [ɪt̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /it/, [it̪]

Verb

it

1. third-person singular present active indicative of eō

Particle

it

1. used to assign accentuation to expression

   it sevišķi ― especially

   it nekas ― nothing at all

   it nekur ― nowhere at all

   it nemaz ― not at all

   it kā ― as if

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪt/

Pronoun

it

1. Alternative form of het

Pronoun

it

1. Alternative form of hit (“it”)

Determiner

it

1. Alternative form of hit (“it”)

Etymology

From Old Saxon it, from Proto-Germanic *hit.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪt/, /ət/

Pronoun

it

1. (third person singular neuter nominative) it
2. (third person singular neuter accusative) it

Pronunciation

• (Kautokeino) IPA^(key): /ˈih(t)/

Verb

it

1. second-person singular present of ii

Alternative forms

• (second-person singular form) at

Pronunciation

• (second-person singular form) IPA^(key): /it/
• (third-person plural form) IPA^(key): /id/

Verb

it

1. inflection of is:
   1. second-person singular present indicative
   2. third-person plural present indicative

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *jit, North-West Germanic form of *jut. Cognate with Old English ġit, Gothic 𐌾𐌿𐍄 (jut).

Pronoun

it

1. (personal) second-person dual pronoun; you two

References

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *it.

Pronoun

it n

1. it

Pronoun

it

1. you (singular)

Adverb

it

1. not

References

• Claus Stephani, Volksgut der Sathmarschwaben (1985)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈit]

• Audio:

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Ottoman Turkish ایت (it), from Proto-Turkic *ï̄t (“dog”). Compare Yakut ыт (ıt, “dog”).

Etymology 2

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Turkic *ï̄t (“dog”).

Noun

it (definite accusative idi, plural itler)

1. dog