noun
- plural of you.
pronoun
- youse.
pronoun, possessive your or yours, objective you, plural you.
- the pronoun of the second person singular or plural, used of the person or persons being addressed, in the nominative or objective case: You are the highest bidder. It is you who are to blame. We can’t help you. This package came for you. Did she give you the book?
- one; anyone; people in general: a tiny animal you can’t even see.
- (used in apposition with the subject of a sentence, sometimes repeated for emphasis following the subject): You children pay attention. You rascal, you!
- Informal. (used in place of the pronoun your before a gerund): There’s no sense in you getting upset.
- Archaic.
- yourself; yourselves: Get you home. Make you ready.
- a plural form of the pronoun ye1.
noun, plural yous.
- something or someone closely identified with or resembling the person addressed: Don’t buy the bright red shirt—it just isn’t you. It was like seeing another you.
- the nature or character of the person addressed: Try to discover the hidden you.
pronoun
- not standard refers to more than one person including the person or persons addressed but not including the speakeryous have all had it now; I’m fed up with yous
pronoun (subjective or objective)
- refers to the person addressed or to more than one person including the person or persons addressed but not including the speakeryou know better; the culprit is among you
- Also: one refers to an unspecified person or people in generalyou can’t tell the boys from the girls
- mainly US a dialect word for yourself or yourselvesyou should get you a wife now See yourself
noun
- informal the personality of the person being addressed or something that expresses itthat hat isn’t really you
- you know what or you know who a thing or person that the speaker cannot or does not want to specify
Old English eow, dative and accusative plural of þu (see thou), objective case of ge, “ye” (see ye), from West Germanic *iuwiz (cf. Old Norse yor, Old Saxon iu, Old Frisian iuwe, Middle Dutch, Dutch u, Old High German iu, iuwih, German euch), from PIE *ju. Pronunciation of you and the nominative form ye gradually merged from 14c.; the distinction between them passed out of general usage by 1600. Widespread use of French in England after 12c. gave English you the same association as French vous, and it began to drive out singular nominative thou, originally as a sign of respect (similar to the “royal we”) when addressing superiors, then equals and strangers, and ultimately (by c.1575) becoming the general form of address. For a more thorough discussion of this, go here. Through 13c. English also retained a dual pronoun ink “you two; your two selves; each other.” Words for “you” in Japanese include anata (formal, used by a wife when addressing her husband), kimi (intimate, used among friends) or the rougher omae (oh-MAI-aye), used when talking down to someone or among male friend showing their manliness. Dial. you-uns, for you-ones, first noted 1810 in Ohio. In addition to the idioms beginning with you
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