[1913 Webster] Note: "In Old English, generally,
thou is the language of a lord to a servant, of an equal to an
equal, and expresses also companionship, love, permission,
defiance, scorn, threatening: whilst ye is the language of a
servant to a lord, and of compliment, and further expresses honor,
submission, or entreaty." --Skeat. [1913 Webster] Note: Thou is now
sometimes used by the Friends, or Quakers, in familiar discourse,
though most of them corruptly say thee instead of thou. [1913
Webster]
You \You\ ([=u]), pron. [Possess. Your ([=u]r) or Yours ([=u]rz); dat. & obj.
You.] [OE. you, eou, eow,
dat. & acc., AS. e['o]w, used as dat. & acc. of ge, g[=e],
ye; akin to OFries. iu, io, D. u, G. euch, OHG. iu, dat., iuwih,
acc., Icel. y[eth]r, dat. & acc., Goth. izwis; of uncertain
origin. [root]189. Cf. Your.] The pronoun of the second
person, in the nominative, dative, and objective case, indicating
the person or persons addressed. See the Note under Ye. [1913 Webster] Ye go to
Canterbury; God you speed. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] Good sir, I do
in friendship counsel you To leave this place. --Shak. [1913
Webster] In vain you tell your parting lover You wish fair winds
may waft him over. --Prior. [1913 Webster] Note: Though you is
properly a plural, it is in all ordinary discourse used also in
addressing a single person, yet properly always with a plural verb.
"Are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is
so admired ?" --Shak. You and your are sometimes used indefinitely,
like we, they, one, to express persons not specified. "The looks at
a distance like a new-plowed land; but as you come near it, you see
nothing but a long heap of heavy, disjointed clods." --Addison.
"Your medalist and critic are much nearer related than the world
imagine." --Addison. "It is always pleasant to be forced to do what
you wish to do, but what, until pressed, you dare not attempt."
--Hook. You is often used reflexively for yourself of yourselves.
"Your highness shall repose you at the tower." --Shak. [1913
Webster]
Your \Your\ ([=u]r), pron. & a. [OE. your,
[yogh]our, eowr, eower, AS. e['o]wer, originally used as the gen.
of ge, g[=e], ye; akin to OFries. iuwer your, OS. iuwar, D. uw,
OHG. iuw[=e]r, G. euer, Icel. y[eth]ar, Goth. izwara, izwar, and E.
you. [root]189. See You.]
The form of the possessive case of the personal pronoun you. [1913
Webster] Note: The possessive takes the form yours when the noun to
which it refers is not expressed, but implied; as, this book is
yours. "An old fellow of yours." --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]
English
Etymology
Old English ēower.Pronoun
your (The possessive of you)- Belonging to you; of you; related to you (singular; one owner).
- Let's meet tomorrow at your convenience.
- Is this your cat?
- Let's meet tomorrow at your convenience.
- Belonging to you; of you; related to you (plural; more owners).
Translations
belonging to you (singular; one owner)
belonging to you (plural; more owners)
belonging to you (to be sorted)
- Breton: da, ho
- Chinese: 你的 (nǐ de)
- Czech: tvůj
- Esperanto: via, viaj
- Estonian:
- Finnish:
- Hungarian:
- Ido: vua, tua
- Italian:
- Japanese: あなたの, 君の
- Old English: þīn s, inċer dual, ēower p
- Polish: twój , twoja , twoje n, n plural, twoi m|p; wasz , wasza , wasze n, n plural, wasi m|p; (formal to male) pański ; (formal to female) pani m, f, n, plural
- Russian: твой
- Scottish Gaelic: do, ur
- Spanish: tu, tus, vuestro, vuestra, vuestros, vuestras, suyo, suya, suyos, suyas
- Swedish: din , ditt , dina p (referring to a single owner), er , ert , era p (referring to multiple owners)
You () is the second-person
personal
pronoun in Modern
English.
Usage
In standard English, you is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural, such as you are. This was not always so. Early Modern English distinguished between the plural you and the singular thou. This distinction was lost in modern English due to the importation from France of a Romance linguistic feature which is commonly called the T-V distinction. This distinction made the plural forms more respectful and deferential; they were used to address strangers and social superiors. This distinction ultimately led to familiar thou becoming obsolete in standard English (and Dutch), although this did not happen in other languages such as French. Ironically, because thou is now seen primarily in literary sources such as King James Bible (often directed to God, who is traditionally addressed in the familiar) or Shakespeare (often in dramatic dialogs, e.g. "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"), many modern anglophones erroneously perceive it as more formal, rather than familiar (case in point: in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader addresses the Emperor saying, "What is thy bidding, my master?").Because you is both singular and plural, various
English dialects have
attempted to revive the distinction between a singular and plural
you to avoid confusion between the two uses. This is typically done
by adding a new plural form; examples of new plurals sometimes seen
and heard are y'all/you-all
(primarily in the southern United
States and
African American Vernacular English), you guys (in the U.S.,
particularly in Midwest, Northeast, and West Coast, and in
Australia), you lot (in the UK), youse (Scotland, Northern England,
Australia, New Zealand) youse guys (New York City region,
Philadelphia, Michigan's Upper Peninsula; also spelt without the
E), and you-uns/yinz
(Western Pennsylvania, The Appalachians). English spoken in
Ireland,
known as Hiberno-English,
sometimes uses the word ye as the plural form, or yous. Although
these plurals are useful in daily speech, they are generally not
found in Standard
English. Among them, you guys is considered most neutral in the
U.S. It is the most common plural form of you in the U.S. except in
the dialects with y'all, and has been used even in the White
House.
You is also unusual in that, being both singular
and plural, it has two reflexive
forms, yourself and yourselves. However, in recent years singular
themself is sometimes seen: see singular
they.
Etymology
You is derived from Old English ge or (both pronounced roughly like Modern English yea), which was the old nominative case form of the pronoun, and eow, which was the old accusative case form of the pronoun. In Middle English the nominative case became ye, and the oblique case (formed by the merger of the accusative case and the former dative case) was you. In early Modern English either the nominative or the accusative forms have been generalized in most dialects. Most generalized you; some dialects in the north of England and Scotland generalized ye, or use ye as a clipped or clitic form of the pronoun.Ye and you are cognate with Dutch jij
and jou, German
ihr, Gothic
jus and Old
Norse ér. (Modern Icelandic
þér is a variant form due to alteration of phrases like háfiþ ér
(you have) into háfi þér etc.) The specific form of this pronoun is
unique to the Germanic
languages, but the Germanic forms ultimately do relate to the
general Indo-European
forms represented by Latin vos.
Note that in the early days of the printing
press, the letter y was
used in place of the thorn (þ),
so many modern instances of ye (such as in "Ye Olde Shoppe") are in
fact examples of the and not
of you.
Plural forms in other European languages
Similar to English, u in Dutch is taken as a polite form for both plural and singular, while jij (singular) and jullie (plural) are considered informal. (Dutch lost its original thou form, du, just like English did; the forms U, jij, and jullie are more analogous to English you, ye, and y'all respectively). French has kept the system intact. Vous is still used as formal and plural, while tu is used for informal singular. Russian uses this system also: vy (вы) is formal/plural and ty (ты) is informal singular. This kind of system is also found in other languages, like Finnish and Swedish. In modern Swedish though, the term ni (plural for you) is rarely used to address a single person, not even in formal circumstances. The term used is du (you, singular).While English, Dutch, French and Russian use or
have used the plural forms as the polite forms, other European
languages use forms deriving from the third
person. German,
for example, uses the third person plural pronoun sie, capitalized
Sie, as its formal pronoun (in other words, Sie is grammatically
identical to They). Danish
and Norwegian
languages similarly have De; however, this usage is generally
outdated and replaced with the familiar form. Italian
has separate forms for singular (Lei) and plural (Loro), which are
derived from the Italian words for she and they respectively; a
partial similarity to the German system (especially since the
German word for she is also sie, but conjugates differently from
Sie). However, sometimes the French system is also used in Italy,
using the plural pronoun voi as singular. In Hungarian,
te is informal, while there are different, synonymous words for
formal (ön and maga being the two most commonly used).
Spanish
and Portuguese
use pronouns derived from third person phrases which originally
meant your mercy, sir or madam, along with their plural forms. For
Spanish, they are usted (pl. ustedes), and for Portuguese, você
(pl. vocês), o senhor (pl. os senhores) and a senhora (pl. as
senhoras). Você is often employed informally in Brazil, though the
original singular pronoun tu is more commonly used in the South,
the Northeast and some rural regions (this may be due to foreign
influence in some locations), but o senhor, a senhora and their
plurals are still used and always formal. In some Spanish speaking
areas (especially in Latin America), the original second person
singular pronoun tú has been dropped entirely, thus erasing the
distinction between formal and informal address. In others, it was
replaced with an old form of the second person plural pronoun, vos,
now used as an informal counterpart to usted. See voseo. Modified versions of vos,
vosotros and vosotras, are still used in Spain as informal second
person plural pronouns, while the singular is still tú, used
informally. Portuguese has moved farther away from the original
paradigm; the plural pronoun vós has disappeared in Brazil and is no
longer used in ordinary speech in Portugal.
- "You", (i.e the ordinary member of the public) were awarded the Person of the Year award for 2006 by the United States (U.S.) newsmagazine Time.
your in German: Du (Personalpronomen)
your in Spanish: Tuteo (gramática)
your in Dutch: Jij
your in Japanese: あなた
your in Chechen: Хьо
your in Portuguese: Você
your in Russian: Вы
your in Simple English:
You