she

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

After the cat killed a mouse, she left it on our doorstep.

She seems a clever girl, your Isabel.

Goodly she entertaind those noble knights, / And brought them vp into her castle hall […]

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I meant to express by them.

1917, Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett, The Darling and Other Stories, Project Gutenberg, published 9 September 2004, →ISBN, page 71:

(personal) The female (typically) person or animal previously mentioned or implied.

She could do forty knots in good weather.

She is a beautiful boat, isn’t she?

(personal, sometimes endearing) A ship or boat.

She is a poor place, but has beautiful scenery and friendly people.

(personal, dated, sometimes endearing) A country, or sometimes a city, province, planet, etc.

She only gets thirty miles to the gallon on the highway, but she’s durable.

Prodigal in everything, summer spreads her blessings with lavish unconcern, and waving her magic wand across the landscape of the world, she bids the sons of men to enter in and possess. Summer is the great consummation.

1928, The Journal of the American Dental Association, page 765:

She is my 57 Chevy / My 57 Chevy runs so fine / No one can beat my 57 Chevy

1977, “57 Chevy”, in Kansas City Slickers, performed by The Leopards:

The car’s engine revved up, and the back wheels screeched. Then she lurched forward at terrific speed.

2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

(personal, endearing or poetic, chiefly dated) A thing, especially a machine or other object, such as a car, a computer, or (poetically) a season.

Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage.

(personal, nonstandard) A person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (used in a work, along with or in place of he, as an indefinite pronoun).

head

she (third-person singular, feminine, nominative case, oblique and possessive her, possessive hers, reflexive herself)

en-pron

her (oblique possessive)
hers (possessive)
herself (reflexive)
shoo (alternative)
hoo (alternative)
shee (alternative)

The following table shows a list of English personal pronoun

including archaic and dialectal forms. Dialectal and obsolete

archaic forms are in italics. 1 See Appendix:English third-person singular pronouns for attested neopronoun.

not used in Dyirbal (Dyirbal has no third-person pronoun)

es (in reference to some neuter common nouns like Mädchen)

(subject pronouns usually omitted, or a demonstrative is used: medial, proximal, and distal:) αὕτη f (haútē)

(usually indicated by the zero suffix only) -∅

sie

in reference to proper nouns of ships like Titanic

sí

even though the word for ‘boat’ is masculine

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, Danish hun, Swedish hon; more at he.
A derivation from Old English sēo (“the or that", occasionally "she”) is also possible, though less likely. In that case, sēo would have undergone a change in stress from sēo to seō /sjoː/, then a change from /sj-/ to /ʃ-/, similar to the derivation of sure from Old French seur. It would then be cognate to Dutch zij and German sie.
Neither etymology would be expected to yield the modern vocalism in /iː/ (the expected form would be shoo, which is in fact found dialectally). It may be due to influence from he, but both hēo and sēo also have rare variants (hīe and sīe) that may give modern English /iː/.


she

Pat is definitely a she.

Come, come, we know very well what all the matter is; but if one won’t, another will; so pretty a gentleman need never want a lady. I am sure, if I was you, I would see the finest she that ever wore a head hanged, before I would go for a soldier for her.

1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare.

1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 130”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

he came home to find […] honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

“Then,” I said, much amused, “you think that if you were mixed up in a crime, say a murder, you’d be able to spot the murderer right off?” “Of course I should. Mightn’t be able to prove it to a pack of lawyers. But I’m certain I’d know. I’d feel it in my fingertips if he came near me.” “It might be a ‘she’,” I suggested.

1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 12:

Plucked her eyebrows on the way / Shaved her legs and then he was a she

1972, Lou Reed, “Walk on the Wild Side”, in Transformer:

A world where the hes are so much more common than the shes can hardly be seen as a welcoming place for women.

2000, Sue V. Rosser, Building inclusive science volume 28, issues 1–2, page 189


she

If somebody wants to go by “he,” continually “sheing” them [is invalidating].

2019 April 16, Natalia Deeb-Sossa, Community-Based Participatory Research: Testimonios from Chicana/o Studies, University of Arizona Press, →ISBN, page 193:

In his conversation with the woman, Ari would 'he' himself using the masculine pronoun and she would reply by consistently 'she'''ing' him. Such examples share something about the emotional quality of language[…]

2023 December 7, Laura L. Paterson, The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:

(transitive) To refer to (someone) using she/her pronouns.


she

(African-American Vernacular) Synonym of her