they

Meaning

Pronoun

• A group of people, animals, plants or objects previously mentioned.
• A single person, previously mentioned, especially if of unknown or non-binary gender, but typically not if previously named and identified as male or female.
• People; some people; people in general; someone, excluding the speaker.
• There .

Origin

• From Middle English thei, borrowed in the 1200s from Old Norse þeir, plural of the demonstrative sá which acted as a plural pronoun. Displaced native — which vowel changes had left indistinct from hē — by the 1400s, being readily incorporated alongside native words beginning with the same sound (the, that, this). Used as a singular pronoun since 1300, e.g. in the 1325 Cursor Mundi.
• The Norse term (whence also Icelandic þeir ("they"), Faroese teir, Danish de ("they"), Swedish de ("they"), Norwegian Nynorsk dei ("they")) is from Proto-Germanic *þai ("those") (from Proto-Indo-European *só ("that")), whence also Old English þā ("those") (whence obsolete English tho), Scots thae, thai, thay.
• The origin of the determiner they is unclear. The OED, English Dialect Dictionary and Middle English Dictionary define it and its Middle English predecessor thei as a demonstrative determiner or adjective meaning "those" or "the". This could be a continuation of the use of the English pronoun they's Old Norse etymon þeir as a demonstrative meaning "those", but the OED and EDD say it is limited to southern, especially southwestern, England, specifically outside the region of Norse contact.
• From earlier the'e, from there.