See epicene they on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "epicene theys",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
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"expansion": "epicene they (plural epicene theys)",
"name": "en-noun"
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
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"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
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{
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"langcode": "en",
"name": "Linguistics",
"orig": "en:Linguistics",
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"examples": [
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"ref": "2001 August 27, Brian Tung <brian@isi.edu>, “Re: OK, Why No Half Moon Phase?”, in sci.astro.amateur (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 19 May 2026:",
"text": "That's because, as amazing as it sometimes seems to austere grammarians, epicene \"they\" is not universally regarded as wrong. It has a long and respected history (dating back to the 14th century, I believe), and many famous writers have used and defended it.",
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"ref": "2002 August 7, Maciej Baranowski, “Current usage of the epicene pronoun in written English”, in Journal of Sociolinguistics, volume 6, number 2, Blackwell Publishers, →DOI, →ISSN, page 383:",
"text": "Some researchers have suggested a strong link between the type of antecedent and the chosen alternative of the epicene pronoun. For example, it has been suggested that the majority of epicene theys refer to quanticational expressions such as somebody, everybody, etc.",
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"ref": "2004 June 7, Mark Balhorn, “The Rise of Epicene They”, in Journal of English Linguistics, volume 32, number 2, Sage Publications, →DOI, →ISSN, page 79:",
"text": "[Title:] The Rise of Epicene They",
"type": "quotation"
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"ref": "2011 October 7, Leroy Huizenga, “The Collins Bank Bible by Leroy Huizenga”, in First Things, number 216, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, page 55:",
"text": "In short, inclusive language is supposedly scientific, its use necessitated by modern English. And so the epicene \"they\" becomes a neuter workaround, but \"mankind\" is employed, some allegedly sexist renderings are retained, and God and Satan remain masculine because this is how modern anglophones speak and think.",
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"ref": "2018 October 7, Jane Noll, Mark Lowry, Judith Bryant, “Changes Over Time in the Comprehension of He and They as Epicene Pronouns”, in Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, volume 47, number 5, Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 1065-1066:",
"text": "We conducted two experiments that, in contrast with prior work, employed implicit methods. We manipulated the type of pronoun in a sentence (i.e., epicene he, epicene they, and unrelated) and type of probe word (masculine or feminine) in order to determine whether he or they is a more effective epicene pronoun, comparably facilitating the processing of both masculine- and feminine-gendered words.",
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"ref": "2020 December 7, Vilma Karhu, The Use of Epicene Pronouns in EFL settings: A comparative Study between Finnish and Austrian University Students (master's thesis), Tampere University, via Academia.edu, archived from the original on 19 May 2026:",
"text": "Similarly, quantifiers such as somebody, everybody, and nobody seem to influence pronoun selection as the majority of epicene theys refer to quantificational expressions.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The pronoun they when used to refer to a single individual, regardless of gender."
],
"id": "en-epicene_they-en-noun-b31sQXLk",
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"linguistics",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(linguistics) The pronoun they when used to refer to a single individual, regardless of gender."
],
"topics": [
"human-sciences",
"linguistics",
"sciences"
]
}
],
"word": "epicene they"
}
{
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"expansion": "epicene they (plural epicene theys)",
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"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
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"ref": "2001 August 27, Brian Tung <brian@isi.edu>, “Re: OK, Why No Half Moon Phase?”, in sci.astro.amateur (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 19 May 2026:",
"text": "That's because, as amazing as it sometimes seems to austere grammarians, epicene \"they\" is not universally regarded as wrong. It has a long and respected history (dating back to the 14th century, I believe), and many famous writers have used and defended it.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
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[
184,
197
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],
"ref": "2002 August 7, Maciej Baranowski, “Current usage of the epicene pronoun in written English”, in Journal of Sociolinguistics, volume 6, number 2, Blackwell Publishers, →DOI, →ISSN, page 383:",
"text": "Some researchers have suggested a strong link between the type of antecedent and the chosen alternative of the epicene pronoun. For example, it has been suggested that the majority of epicene theys refer to quanticational expressions such as somebody, everybody, etc.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
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[
21,
33
]
],
"ref": "2004 June 7, Mark Balhorn, “The Rise of Epicene They”, in Journal of English Linguistics, volume 32, number 2, Sage Publications, →DOI, →ISSN, page 79:",
"text": "[Title:] The Rise of Epicene They",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
106,
120
]
],
"ref": "2011 October 7, Leroy Huizenga, “The Collins Bank Bible by Leroy Huizenga”, in First Things, number 216, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, page 55:",
"text": "In short, inclusive language is supposedly scientific, its use necessitated by modern English. And so the epicene \"they\" becomes a neuter workaround, but \"mankind\" is employed, some allegedly sexist renderings are retained, and God and Satan remain masculine because this is how modern anglophones speak and think.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
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[
167,
171
],
[
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275
]
],
"ref": "2018 October 7, Jane Noll, Mark Lowry, Judith Bryant, “Changes Over Time in the Comprehension of He and They as Epicene Pronouns”, in Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, volume 47, number 5, Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 1065-1066:",
"text": "We conducted two experiments that, in contrast with prior work, employed implicit methods. We manipulated the type of pronoun in a sentence (i.e., epicene he, epicene they, and unrelated) and type of probe word (masculine or feminine) in order to determine whether he or they is a more effective epicene pronoun, comparably facilitating the processing of both masculine- and feminine-gendered words.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
118,
131
]
],
"ref": "2020 December 7, Vilma Karhu, The Use of Epicene Pronouns in EFL settings: A comparative Study between Finnish and Austrian University Students (master's thesis), Tampere University, via Academia.edu, archived from the original on 19 May 2026:",
"text": "Similarly, quantifiers such as somebody, everybody, and nobody seem to influence pronoun selection as the majority of epicene theys refer to quantificational expressions.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The pronoun they when used to refer to a single individual, regardless of gender."
],
"links": [
[
"linguistics",
"linguistics"
],
[
"they",
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]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(linguistics) The pronoun they when used to refer to a single individual, regardless of gender."
],
"topics": [
"human-sciences",
"linguistics",
"sciences"
]
}
],
"word": "epicene they"
}
Download raw JSONL data for epicene they meaning in All languages combined (3.9kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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