he

he

1. (international standards) ISO 639-1 language code for Hebrew.

• hee, hée (obsolete)

From Middle English he, from Old English hē, from Proto-West Germanic *hiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱís (“this”).

Cognate with Scots he (“he”), North Frisian he, hi (“he”), Saterland Frisian hie (“he”), West Frisian hy (“he”), Dutch hij, ie (“he”), German Low German he (“he”), Middle High German her (“he”) Central Franconian hä (“he”), Gothic *𐌷𐌹𐍃 (*his, “this”).

• (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

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^[1], 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[2]

     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 […]

• He was traditionally used as both a masculine and a gender-neutral pronoun, but since the mid-20th century generic usage has sometimes been considered sexist and limiting.^[1][2] It is deprecated by some style guides, such as Wadsworth.^[3] In place of generic he, writers and speakers may use he or she, alternate he and she as the indefinite person, use the singular they, or rephrase sentences to use plural they.

• (person whose gender is unknown): one, you (indefinite, colloquial); he or she, he/she, they, s/he, or these other third-person pronouns (see "Combined forms", "Invented pronouns")
• (animal whose gender is unknown): it

he

1. (African-American Vernacular) Synonym of his

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?

Transliteration of various Semitic letters, such as Phoenician 𐤄 (h), Hebrew ה (h), Classical Syriac ܗ (h, “hē”), and Old South Arabian 𐩠 (h).

• hay
• hei
• hey

• IPA^(key): /heɪ/

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.

• Appendix:Hebrew alphabet

• He (letter) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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."

• -eh, E.H., EH, eH, eh

he

1. paca (large South and Central American rodent)

• Aukan-English Dictionary (SIL), citing Vernon (1985)

Compare Welsh ei.

he (requires spirant mutation)

1. her

   he zad ― her father

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈe]
• Rhymes: -e

he f (plural hes)

1. he (fifth letter of various Semitic alphabets)

• haig

he

1. first-person singular present indicative of haver

A natural expression.

• IPA^(key): [é]

he

1. an expression of physical pain; ouch.
   • 1571, Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, f. 22r. col. 1:

     He. o. interjection del / que ſequexa con do / lor.

     He. ouch, and interjection used by one complaining in pain.

• Alonso de Molina (1571) Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, Editorial Porrúa, page 22r

he

1. (onomatopoeia) Signifies a laugh, especially one that is slightly mischievous.

• ha

he

1. Misspelling of hè.
2. Misspelling of hé.

• IPA^(key): [he]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: he

he

1. interjection used to attract someone's attention, hey
2. interjection expressing irony

• he ho

• hej

hẹ or hȩ́ (Fasu)

1. water
2. river

   he Aiyo ― the River Aiyo

3. lake

   he Kutupu ― Lake Kutubu

4. liquid

• hi (Namumi)

• Karl J. Franklin, Comparative Wordlist 1 of the Gulf District and adjacent areas (1975), page 67
• Eunice Loeweke, Jean May, General grammar of Fasu (Namo Me) (1980)
• Eunice Loeweke, Jean May, Fasu Namo Me dictionary (1981, digitized 2006)

From Proto-Finnic *hek, from Proto-Finno-Permic *sej. Cognates include Northern Sami sii, Erzya сынь (siń). The word is inflected as plural, but there is no plural marker in the nominative, except in dialects (het). See hän for more details on history of usage.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhe/, [ˈhe̞]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -e
• Hyphenation^(key): he

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)

• In standard Finnish, he is practically never omitted, despite the verb showing both the person and the number (compare the usage of hän).

• Irregular (inflectional stem hei-, as if in the plural). The comitative and instructive forms don't exist; the abessive is hardly used.
• In addition to the standard set of cases, he and other personal pronouns have a specific accusative form, heidät.

• (dialectal): het
• (dialectal): hyö
• (colloquial): ne

• Kven: het

• “1. he”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[3] (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

From Phoenician 𐤄 (h) and/or Biblical Hebrew ה.

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

he

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

• hee
• (in other dialects, including Mecklenburgisch, West Pomeranian and Low Prussian) hei
• (in other dialects, including Sauerländisch) hai
• (in other dialects, including regional Westphalian and East Frisian as rare alternative form) hä

From Middle Low German hê, from Old Saxon hē, from Proto-West Germanic *hiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this, this one”).

• IPA^(key): /hɛɪ̯/

he m (genitive sin, dative 1 em, dative 2 en, dative 3 jüm, accusative 1 em, accusative 2 en)

1. (in some dialects, including, Münsterland, Mecklenburgisch, Western Pomeranian and Low Prussian, personal) he (third-person singular masculine pronoun)

   He ös to lat. (Low Prussian)

   He is too late.

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

• G. Ungt, Twee Geschichten in Mönstersk Platt. Ollmanns Jans in de Friümde un Ollmanns Jans up de Reise, 1861. The text has dative em and accusative em and en, and on page 22 the author notes: "Hier und in vielen Fällen steht der Dativ em statt des Accusativ en (ihm statt ihn) nach der Bequemlichkeit, die sich diese Mundart erlaubt." (Here and in many other places stands the dative em instead of the accusative en ...)

• IPA^(key): /ɦe/

he

1. to say, to tell

   Synonyms: î, hiyagga

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /he/

he (indefinite)

1. a, an

   he wahine au

   I am a woman

   he wahine kāna

   s/he has a wife

From h +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): /he/, /hɛ/

he (plural be-i)

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

• (Latin script letter names) litero; a, be, ce, che, de, e, fe, ge, he, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, pe, que, re, se, she, te, u, ve, we, xe, ye, ze ^{(Category: io:Latin letter names)}

he

1. The hiragana syllable へ (he) or the katakana syllable ヘ (he) in Hepburn romanization.

Cognate with Sindhi ھِي (hī, “this”).

he

1. it (proximal)

• Eric Anonby, Hassan Mohebi Bahmani (2014) “Shipwrecked and Landlocked: Kholosi, an Indo-Aryan Language in South-west Iran”, in Cahier de Studia Iranica xx‎^[4], pages 13-36

Hinde (1904) records kuha as an equivalent of English give in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Swahili kupa, etc. as its equivalents.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /hɛ/

he (infinitive kũhe)

1. to give

(Proverbs)

• mwana ndaheanagwo

(Nouns)

• kĩhe(e)o class 7
• maheeo class 6

• Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu, p. 361. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).

he

1. question-marking particle used by females in formal speech

   Mázaškaŋškaŋ tóna he? ― what time is it?

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.

• huwó (used by men)

he (he⁵／he⁰, Zhuyin ˙ㄏㄜ)

1. Hanyu Pinyin reading of 荷

he

1. Nonstandard spelling of hē.
2. Nonstandard spelling of hé.
3. Nonstandard spelling of hě.
4. Nonstandard spelling of hè.

• 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.

Cognate with Hawaiian he

he

1. a, an, some: indefinite article

• te (for "the" in singular)
• ngā (for "the" in plural)

From Old English hē, from Proto-West Germanic *hiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this, this one”).

• IPA^(key): /heː/

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

In addition to referring to male humans and animals, this pronoun was used for inanimate objects belonging to the masculine grammatical gender early in Middle English. As grammatical gender obsolesced, this pronoun continued to refer to inanimate objects.

• hee, ȝe, e, hey, hi, hie, hye, heo, ho, hæ, ha, a

• English: he
• Scots: he
• Yola: hea, he, hey, hay

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

From Old English hīe, hī. Compare þei.

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

• heo, heȝ, hey, hei, ha, hay, hy, hi, hye, hie, hig, hiȝ, hij, hio, ho, hoe, hue, huy, hui, e, i, a

• Yola: hi, h'

• “he, pron.(3).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

he

1. Alternative form of heo (“she”)

he

1. Alternative form of hey (“hey”)

he

1. Alternative form of heye (“hedge”)

he (comparative her, superlative hest)

1. Alternative form of heigh (“high”)

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”)

From Old Saxon hē.

• Stem vowel: ê⁴
  • (originally) IPA^(key): /heː/

hê

1. (third person singular masculine nominative) he

he

1. Alternative form of hi

he

1. (dialectal, Trøndelag) alternative form of hev (“have, has”)

   E he ei bok om føgla. He hann løst å kjøp ho?

   I have a book about birds. Does he want to buy it? (literally "does he have desire to by her?")

From Proto-West Germanic *hiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this, this one”).

• IPA^(key): /xeː/, [heː]

hē m (accusative hine, genitive his, dative him)

1. he
   • 10th century, The Wanderer‎^[5]:

     Oft him ānhaga · āre gebīdeð,
     Metudes miltse, · þēah þe hē mōdċeariġ

     A loner oft waits a grace for himself,
     Creator's mercy, even if he is sorrowful

2. it (when the thing being referred to is masculine)
3. they (singular) (denotes someone of unknown gender)

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

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “hē”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[6], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• hie

From Proto-West Germanic *hiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hiz.

hē m

1. he

• German Low German: he

Onomatopoeic.

• (Masovia):
  • (Near Masovian) IPA^(key): /ˈxɛ/

he

1. (Near Masovian, often repeated) used to direct oxen to move forward

   Coordinate terms: byś, eć, kse

• Władysław Matlakowski (1891) “he”, in “Zbiór wyrazów ludowych dawnej ziemi czerskiej”, in Sprawozdania Komisyi Językowej Akademii Umiejętności, volume 4, Krakow: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, page 372

he

1. Obsolete spelling of é.

he

1. Alternative form of hei

From Middle English he, from Old English hē.

• IPA^(key): /hi/, /hɪ/
• Rhymes: -iː

he (third-person singular, masculine, nominative case; accusative him, reflexive himsel, possessive his)

1. he

• IPA^(key): /ˈe/ [ˈe]
• Rhymes: -e
• Syllabification: he
• Homophones: hé, e

Borrowed from Arabic هَا (hā, “behold!, lo!, look!”).^[1] Cognate to Galician eis and Portuguese eis.

he

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

• Takes pronoun suffixes, e.g. heme (“here I am”), and is mostly used together with aquí, ahí, allí.

he f (plural hes)

1. he; the Hebrew letter ה

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

he

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

• “he”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28

• hä

IPA^(key): /heː/

Related to häva.

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)

Not widely known to native Swedish speakers. Primarily used in certain regions of Norrland in Sweden.

he n

1. (regional, Northern Sweden, Ostrobothnia) it

In Sweden, primarily used in the northern parts of norrland. In Finland, used in the northern part of Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia.

• det

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈhe/ [ˈhɛ]
• Rhymes: -e
• Syllabification: he

he! (Baybayin spelling ᜑᜒ)

1. Alternative form of tse

he (Baybayin spelling ᜑᜒ) (historical)

1. Alternative spelling of ge

• eh

From Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *se. Cognates include Hawaiian he and Maori he.

• IPA^(key): [he]
• Hyphenation: he

he

1. Singular indefinite article; any, an

• R. Simona, editor (1986), Tokelau Dictionary‎^[7], Auckland: Office of Tokelau Affairs, page 304

he (definite accusative heyi, plural heler)

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

• (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

he

1. Letter of the Arabic alphabet: ه

he

1. Alternative form of ha

he

1. Alternative form of ha

• fe

he

1. head

• Lizot, Jacques (2004) Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua yãnomãmɨ‎^[8] (in Spanish), Vicariato apostólico de Puerto Ayacucho, →ISBN

he

1. Alternative form of hea
   • 1867, GLOSSARY OF THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY:

     Co thou; Co he.

     Quoth thou; Says he.

   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 11, page 88:

     W' vengem too hard, he zunk ee commane,

     With venom too hard, he sunk his bat-club,

   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 12, page 88:

     Licke a mope an a mile, he gazt ing a mize;

     Like a fool in a mill, he looked in amazement;

   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 13, page 90:

     He at nouth fade t'zey, llean vetch ee man,

     He that knows what to say, mischief fetch the man,

   • 1867, “CASTEALE CUDDE'S LAMENTATION”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 6, page 104:

     He zide hea'de help mee udh o' hoan

     He said he'd help me out of hand

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 31

• IPA^(key): /hē/

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^[9]:

     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.

• often used in a serial verb construction with rí.

• IPA^(key): /hè/

hè

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

• he when followed by a direct object.