you

See also: You, yóu, yòu, yōu, yǒu, ȝou, and þou

English

Alternative forms

• ye (archaic nominative, dialectal plural)
• ya, yah, yer, yeh, y', yo, yu, yuh (informal or eye dialect)
• -cha (informal, after /t/)
• -ja (informal, after /d/)
• u (informal, internet)
• yoo (eye dialect)
• yew (obsolete or eye dialect)
• youe, yow, yowe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English you, yow, ȝow (object case of ye), from Old English ēow, īow (“you”, dative case of ġē), from Proto-Germanic *iwwiz (“you”, dative case of *jīz), Western form of *izwiz (“you”, dative case of *jūz), from Proto-Indo-European *yūs (“you”, plural), *yū́.

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”), Middle High German eu, iu (“you”, object pronoun), Latin vōs (“you”), Avestan 𐬬𐬋‎ (vō, “you”), Ashkun iã (“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 archaic Swedish I.

Pronunciation

• (stressed)
  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: yo͞o, IPA^(key): /juː/
  • (General American) enPR: yo͞o, IPA^(key): /ju/
  • (General Australian) enPR: yo͞o, IPA^(key): /jʉː/

• Audio

  (file)

  • Rhymes: -uː
• (unstressed)
  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: yo͞o, IPA^(key): /ju/
  • (General American, General Australian) enPR: yə, IPA^(key): /jə/
• Homophones: ewe, u, yew, yu, hew (in h-dropping dialects), hue (in h-dropping dialects)

When a word ending in /t/, /d/, /s/, or /z/ is followed by you, these may coalesce with the /j/, resulting in /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, respectively. This is occasionally represented in writing, e.g. gotcha (from got you) or whatcha doin'? (more formally what are you doing?).

Pronoun

you (second person, singular or plural, nominative or objective, possessive determiner your, possessive pronoun yours, singular reflexive yourself, plural reflexive yourselves)

1. (object pronoun) The people spoken, or written to, as an object. [from 9th c.]

   Both of you should get ready now.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Genesis 42:14, column 1:

     And Ioſeph ſaid vnto them, That is it that I ſpake vnto you, ſaying, Ye are ſpies.

2. (reflexive, now US colloquial) (To) yourselves, (to) yourself. [from 9th c.]
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Richard III:

     If I may counsaile you, some day or two / Your Highnesse shall repose you at the Tower [...].

   • 1611, Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. Genesis XIX:

     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.

   • 1887, H. Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure‎^[1]:

     'Draw near, and wash you in the living flames, and take their virtue into your poor frames in all its virgin strength[.]'

   • 1970, Donald Harington, Lightning Bug:

     ‘Pull you up a chair,’ she offered.

   • 1975, Joseph Nazel, Death for Hire:

     You'd better get you a gun and kill him before he kills you or somebody.

3. (object pronoun) The person spoken to or written to, as an object. (Replacing thee; originally as a mark of respect.) [from 13th c.]
   • c. 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book VIII:

     I charge you, as ye woll have my love, that ye warne your kynnesmen that ye woll beare that day the slyve of golde uppon your helmet.

4. (subject pronoun) The people spoken to or written to, as a subject. (Replacing ye.) [from 14th c.]

   You are all supposed to do as I tell you.

   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     Are you excited? ― Yes, I am excited!

     Audio (US)

     (file)

5. (subject pronoun) The person spoken to or written to, as a subject. (Originally as a mark of respect.) [from 15th c.]
   • c. 1395, Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Clerk's Tale", Canterbury Tales, Ellesmere manuscript (c. 1410):

     certes lord / so wel vs liketh yow / And al youre werk / and euere han doon / þat we / Ne koude nat vs self deuysen how / We myghte lyuen / in moore felicitee [...].

   • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter IX, in Mansfield Park: […], volume II, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], OCLC 39810224, page 208:

     You are right, Fanny, to protest against such an office, but you need not be afraid.

7. (indefinite personal pronoun) Anyone, one; an unspecified individual or group of individuals (as subject or object). [from 16th c.]
   • 2001, Polly Vernon, The Guardian, 5 May 2001:

     You can't choose your family, your lovers are difficult and volatile, but, oh, you can choose your friends - so doesn't it make much more sense to live and holiday with them instead?

Usage notes

• Originally, you was specifically plural (indicating multiple people), and specifically the object form (serving as the object of a verb or preposition; like us as opposed to we). The subject pronoun was ye, and the corresponding singular pronouns were thee and thou, respectively. In some forms of (older) English, you and ye doubled as polite singular forms, e.g. used in addressing superiors, with thee and thou being the non-polite singular forms. In the 1600s, some writers objected to the use of "singular you" (compare objections to the singular they), but in modern English thee and thou are archaic and all but nonexistent and you is used for both the singular and the plural.
• Several forms of English now distinguish singular you from various marked plural forms, such as you guys, y'all, you-uns, or youse, though not all of these are completely equivalent or considered Standard English.
• The pronoun you is usually, but not always, omitted in imperative sentences. In affirmatives, it may be included before the verb (You go right ahead; You stay out of it); in negative imperatives, it may be included either before the don't, or (more commonly) after it (Don't you dare go in there; Don't you start now).
• See Appendix:English parts of speech for other personal pronouns.

Synonyms

• (subject pronoun: person spoken/written to):

  yer (UK eye dialect)

  plus the alternative forms listed above and at Appendix:English personal pronouns

• (subject pronoun: persons spoken/written to; plural): See Thesaurus:y'all
• (object pronoun: person spoken/written to): thee (singular, archaic), ye, to you, to thee, to ye
• (object pronoun: persons spoken/written to): ye, to you, to ye, to you all
• (one): one, people, they, them

Derived terms

• believe you me
• generic you
• how are you
• IOU
• mind you
• nice to meet you
• see you later
• smell you later
• thank you
• you'd
• you know
• you'll
• you're
• you've

 

Descendants

• Jamaican Creole: yuh

Translations

See you/translations § Pronoun.

See also

English personal pronouns

			personal pronoun			possessive pronoun	possessive determiner
			subjective	objective	reflexive
first person	singular		I me (colloquial)	me	myself me mysen	mine	my mine (before vowels, archaic) me
	plural		we	us	ourselves ourself oursen	ours	our
second person	singular	standard, formal	you	you	yourself yoursen	yours yourn (obsolete outside dialects)	your
		archaic, informal	thou	thee	thyself theeself thysen	thine	thy thine (before vowels)
	plural	standard	you ye (archaic)	you	yourselves	yours yourn (obsolete outside dialects)	your
		colloquial	you all y'all you guys	you all y'all you guys	–	y'all's you guys's your guys's (proscribed)	y'all's your all's (nonstandard) you guys's your guys's (proscribed)
		informal / dialectal	(see list of dialectal forms at you and inflected forms in those entries)
third person	singular	masculine	he	him	himself hisself (archaic) hissen	his hisn (obsolete outside dialects)	his
		feminine	she	her	herself hersen	hers hern (obsolete outside dialects)	her
		neuter	it hit	it hit	itself hitself	its his (archaic)	its his (archaic) hits
		genderless	they	them	themself, themselves	theirs	their
		genderless, nonspecific (formal)	one	one	oneself	–	one's
	plural		they	them hem, 'em	themselves theirsen	theirs theirn (obsolete outside dialects)	their

Determiner

you

1. The individual or group spoken or written to.

   Have you gentlemen come to see the lady who fell backwards off a bus?

2. Used before epithets, describing the person being addressed, for emphasis.

   You idiot!

   • 2015, Judi Curtin, Only Eva, The O'Brien Press (→ISBN):

     'You genius!' I shouted in Aretta's ear. 'You absolute genius! Why didn't you tell us you were so good?'

Derived terms

• y'all
• you guys
• you-uns

 

Translations

See you/translations § Determiner.

Verb

you (third-person singular simple present yous, present participle youing, simple past and past participle youed)

2. (transitive) To address (a person) using the pronoun you (in the past, especially to use you rather than thou, when you was considered more formal).
   • 1930, Barrington Hall, Modern Conversation, Brewer & Warren, page 239:

     Youing consists in relating everything in the conversation to the person you wish to flatter, and introducing the word “you” into your speech as often as possible.

   • 1992, Barbara Anderson, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Victoria University Press, page 272:

     Now even Princess Anne had dropped it. Sarah had heard her youing away on television the other night just like the inhabitants of her mother’s dominions beyond the seas.

   • 2004, Ellen Miller, Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books, "Practicing":

     But even having my very own personal pronoun was risky, because it’s pretty tough to keep stopped-hope stopped up when you are getting all youed up, when someone you really like keeps promising you scary, fun, exciting stuff—and even tougher for the of that moment to remain securely devoid of hope, to make smart, self-denying decisions with Dad youing me—the long ooo of it broad and extended, like a hand.

Translations

See you/translations § Verb.

---

Japanese

Romanization

you

1. Rōmaji transcription of よう

See also

• yō

---

Karawa

Noun

you

1. water

References

• transnewguinea.org, citing D. C. Laycock, Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea (1968), Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66

---

Leonese

Etymology

From Old Leonese yo, from Vulgar Latin *eo, attested from the 6th century in Romance, from Latin ego, from Proto-Italic *egō; akin to Greek εγώ (egó), Sanskrit अहम् (aham), all from Proto-Indo-European *éǵh₂.

Pronoun

you

1. I

See also

Leonese personal pronouns

				nominative	disjunctive	dative	accusative
first person	singular			you	min1	me
	plural	masculine		nosoutros		nos
		feminine		nosoutras
second person	singular	familiar		tu	ti1	te
		formal3		vusté
	plural	familiar	masculine2	vosoutros		vos
			feminine	vosoutras
		formal3		vustedes
third person	singular4	masculine2		él		ye	lu
		feminine		eilla			la
	plural	masculine2		eillos		yes	los
		feminine		eillas			las
	reflexive			—	sí1	—

1. Not used with cun; cunmiéu, cuntiéu, and cunsiéu are used instead, respectively
2. Masculine Leonese pronouns can be used when the gender of the subject is unknown or when the subject is plural and of mixed gender.
3. Treated as if it were third-person for purposes of conjugation and reflexivity.
4. A neuter form eillu exists too.

---

Mandarin

Romanization

you

1. Nonstandard spelling of yōu.
2. Nonstandard spelling of yóu.
3. Nonstandard spelling of yǒu.
4. Nonstandard spelling of yòu.

Usage notes

• English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

---

Middle English

Etymology 1

Pronoun

you

1. Alternative form of yow

Pronoun

you

1. (chiefly Northern and East Midland dialectal) Alternative form of þou

---

Mirandese

FWOTD – 11 November 2012

Etymology

From Old Leonese you, from Vulgar Latin *eo, attested from the 6th century in Romance, from Latin ego.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jow/

Pronoun

you

1. I (the first-person singular pronoun)
   • 2008, Picä Tumilho (band) (music), “Ai que cochino!!! (ver. II)”, in Faíçca: Ua stória d'amor i laboura:

     I you cun muita fuorça spetei bien la faca

     And I strongly skewered (with) the knife.

---

Pouye

Noun

you

1. water

References

• transnewguinea.org, citing D. C. Laycock, Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea (1968), Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66

---

Takia

Etymology

Borrowed from Bargam yuw and Waskia yu.

Noun

you

1. water

References

• Malcolm Ross, Andrew Pawley, Meredith Osmond, The Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic: The Culture and Environment (2007, →ISBN

---

Terebu

Noun

you

1. fire

Further reading

• Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia, Pacific Linguistics, series C-98 (1988)