# You

**You** is the second-person personal pronoun of [Modern English](https://www.edgepedia.org/modern-english), used to refer to the person or people being addressed. The [Old English](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-english) forms it displaced, the singular *thou* and the plural subject form *ye*, survive only in some dialects and in fixed religious or literary usage.

| Key facts | Detail |
|---|---|
| Etymology | Old English *eow*, dative and accusative plural of *þu* (thou), from Proto-Germanic *juz-*, *iwwiz*, from Proto-Indo-European *yu-<sup>[3](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)</sup> |
| Loss of *thou* | Singular *you* became the general form of address by about 1575<sup>[3](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)</sup> |

## Origin and early history

You descends from Old English *eow*, the dative and accusative plural of *þu*, the pronoun now spelled *thou*. The Old English second-person system distinguished singular, dual (exactly two people), and plural numbers. The dual pronoun, *ink* meaning "you two", survived through the thirteenth century before disappearing.<sup>[3](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)</sup>

The [Oxford English Dictionary](https://www.edgepedia.org/oxford-english-dictionary) records that *you* was originally only an object form. Its use as a plural subject form, replacing *ye*, began in the fourteenth century, and *you* had become the dominant subject form in most written language by the end of the sixteenth century.<sup>[1](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/you_pron?tab=meaning_and_use)</sup> The pronunciations of *you* and *ye* gradually merged from the fourteenth century, and the distinction between them passed out of general usage by 1600.<sup>[3](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)</sup>

## The polite singular and the decline of thou

Widespread use of French in England after the twelfth century gave *you* the same association as French *vous*, and it began to displace the singular nominative *thou*. By about 1450, using *thou* to address an inferior carried a tinge of insult except between parents and children or intimates, which produced the verb *to thou*, attested from the mid-fifteenth century.<sup>[3](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)</sup>

Singular you spread as a mark of respect, then for equals and strangers, and had become the general form of address by about 1575, leaving *thou* obsolete in standard English.<sup>[3](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)</sup> The change was not universally welcomed: in the 1600s some writers objected to singular *you*, a dispute comparable to later objections to singular *they*.<sup>[4](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you)</sup>

The reflexive forms followed the same expansion.

## Morphology

- **you**: the nominative (subject) and accusative (object) forms
- **your**: the dependent possessive form, as in *your friend*
- **yours**: the independent possessive form, as in *this is yours*
- **yourself**: the singular reflexive form
- **yourselves**: the plural reflexive form

The reflexive forms also function as adjuncts, as in *you did it yourself*.

## Grammar and meaning

Semantically, *you* may refer to one person or many, and in either case it takes plural-form agreement: it takes the verb form that originally marked plurality, *you are*, in common with *we are* and *they are*.<sup>[6](https://sereikaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Referential_and_Impersonal_you_LSA_talk__Handout_Final.pdf)</sup> Prototypically it refers to the addressee together with zero or more other people, excluding the speaker.

*You* also serves as an indefinite pronoun referring to people in general, as a less formal alternative to *one*: compare *one should drink water frequently* with *you should drink water frequently*. In imperative sentences the subject *you* is usually, but not always, omitted, and it can be included for emphasis.<sup>[4](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you)</sup>

## New plural forms

Because standard *you* no longer distinguishes singular from plural, many English dialects have developed new second-person plural pronouns.

- **y'all** or **you all**: the southern United States, African-American Vernacular English, the [Abaco Islands](https://www.edgepedia.org/abaco-islands), St Helena, and [Tristan da Cunha](https://www.edgepedia.org/tristan-da-cunha); occasionally used for the singular in North American varieties
- **you guys**: the United States, particularly the Midwest, Northeast, South Florida, and West Coast, and also Canada and Australia
- **you lot**: the United Kingdom, Palmerston Island, and Australia
- **you mob**: Australia
- **youse**: Ireland, Tyneside, Merseyside, Central Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Philadelphia, and other regions
- **yinz** or **you-uns**: western Pennsylvania, the Ozarks, and the Appalachians
- **allyuh**: [Trinidad and Tobago](https://www.edgepedia.org/trinidad-and-tobago); **unu**: Jamaica, Belize, and other Caribbean and Central American locations; **yinna**: the Bahamas

Some of these forms, notably *y'all* and *you guys*, are attested widely enough that several varieties of English now distinguish a plain singular *you* from a marked plural.<sup>[4](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you)</sup>

## References

1. [you, pron., adj., & n. meanings, etymology and more - Oxford English Dictionary](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/you_pron?tab=meaning_and_use)
2. [you, pron., adj., & n. (etymology) - Oxford English Dictionary](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/you_pron?tab=etymology)
3. [You - Online Etymology Dictionary](https://www.etymonline.com/word/you)
4. [you - Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you)
5. [you - Middle English Compendium, University of Michigan](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED54032)
6. [Referential and Impersonal you LSA talk Handout Final (sereikaite.com)](https://sereikaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Referential_and_Impersonal_you_LSA_talk__Handout_Final.pdf)

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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Linguistics › Grammars and phonologies of individual languages › English grammar and phonology*

*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Sep 30, 2026*

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