"he or she" meaning in English

See he or she in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Pronoun

Forms: they [plural]
Head templates: {{head|en|pronoun|third person||singular||plural|they}} he or she (third person, singular, plural they)
  1. (sometimes proscribed) He or she; used as a gender-neutral reference to the third person singular. Tags: proscribed, singular, sometimes, third-person Synonyms: she or he, heorshe, he/she, she/he, s/he, he (alt: s) Related terms: him or her, her or him, his or her, her or his, they [singular]

Download JSON data for he or she meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "they",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "pronoun",
        "3": "third person",
        "4": "",
        "5": "singular",
        "6": "",
        "7": "plural",
        "8": "they"
      },
      "expansion": "he or she (third person, singular, plural they)",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "pron",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pronouns",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English third person pronouns",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Doyice Cotten, John T. Wolohan, Law for recreation and sport managers, page 466",
          "text": "In Skinner the Court stated: It is not disputed, however, that chemical analysis of urine, like that of blood, can reveal a host of private medical facts about an employee, including whether he or she is epileptic, pregnant, or diabetic.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "He or she; used as a gender-neutral reference to the third person singular."
      ],
      "id": "en-he_or_she-en-pron-iZH0P7pK",
      "links": [
        [
          "He",
          "he"
        ],
        [
          "she",
          "she"
        ],
        [
          "gender-neutral",
          "gender-neutral"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sometimes proscribed) He or she; used as a gender-neutral reference to the third person singular."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "him or her"
        },
        {
          "word": "her or him"
        },
        {
          "word": "his or her"
        },
        {
          "word": "her or his"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "singular"
          ],
          "word": "they"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "she or he"
        },
        {
          "word": "heorshe"
        },
        {
          "word": "he/she"
        },
        {
          "word": "she/he"
        },
        {
          "word": "s/he"
        },
        {
          "alt": "s",
          "word": "he"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "proscribed",
        "singular",
        "sometimes",
        "third-person"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "he or she"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "they",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "pronoun",
        "3": "third person",
        "4": "",
        "5": "singular",
        "6": "",
        "7": "plural",
        "8": "they"
      },
      "expansion": "he or she (third person, singular, plural they)",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "pron",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "him or her"
    },
    {
      "word": "her or him"
    },
    {
      "word": "his or her"
    },
    {
      "word": "her or his"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ],
      "word": "they"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English pronouns",
        "English proscribed terms",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English third person pronouns",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Doyice Cotten, John T. Wolohan, Law for recreation and sport managers, page 466",
          "text": "In Skinner the Court stated: It is not disputed, however, that chemical analysis of urine, like that of blood, can reveal a host of private medical facts about an employee, including whether he or she is epileptic, pregnant, or diabetic.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "He or she; used as a gender-neutral reference to the third person singular."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "He",
          "he"
        ],
        [
          "she",
          "she"
        ],
        [
          "gender-neutral",
          "gender-neutral"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sometimes proscribed) He or she; used as a gender-neutral reference to the third person singular."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "proscribed",
        "singular",
        "sometimes",
        "third-person"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "she or he"
    },
    {
      "word": "heorshe"
    },
    {
      "word": "he/she"
    },
    {
      "word": "she/he"
    },
    {
      "word": "s/he"
    },
    {
      "alt": "s",
      "word": "he"
    }
  ],
  "word": "he or she"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-03-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-03-01 using wiktextract (68773ab and 5f6ddbb). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.