she

Meanings

1. 1
   pron

   Used to refer to a female person or animal mentioned earlier.

   I asked Mary, but she said that she didn't know.

2. 2
   pron

   Used to refer to a ship, country, or sometimes a machine.

   The ship was old, but she could still do forty knots in good weather.

3. 3
   noun

   A female person or animal.

   We didn't know the kitten's sex, but the vet confirmed it was a she.

Inherited from Middle English sche, scho, hyo, ȝho (“she”), whence also Yorkshire dialectal shoo (“she”), Scots she, sho (“she”). Probably from Old English hēo (whence dialectal English hoo), with an irregular change in stress from hēo to heō /hjoː/, then a development from /hj-/ to /ç/ to /ʃ-/, similar to the derivation of Shetland from Old Norse Hjaltland. In this case, she is from Proto-West Germanic *hiju, from Proto-Germanic *hijō f (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this, here”), and is cognate with Saterland Frisian jo, ju, West Frisian hja, North Frisian jü, Dan…

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