she

Etymology

From Middle English sche, scho, hyo, ȝho (“she”), whence also Scots she, sho. 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/.

pron

1. (personal) The female (typically) person or animal previously mentioned or implied.
   I asked Mary, but she said that she didn't know.
   After the cat killed a mouse, she left it on our doorstep.
   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, page 71
2. (personal, sometimes endearing) A ship or boat.
   She could do forty knots in good weather.
   She is a beautiful boat, isn’t she?
3. (personal, dated, sometimes endearing, old-fashioned) A country, or sometimes a city, province, planet, etc.
   She is a poor place, but has beautiful scenery and friendly people.
4. (personal, endearing or poetic, old-fashioned) Any machine or thing, such as a car, a computer, or (poetically) a season.
   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
5. (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).
   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. 1990, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

det

1. (African-American Vernacular) Synonym of her

noun

1. A female.
   Pat is definitely a she.
   Plucked her eyebrows on the way / Shaved her legs and then he was a she 1972, Lou Reed (lyrics and music), “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