it

/ɪt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/ɘt/

it pronoun: the third-person singular neuter personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, abstract entity, or non-human living thing. Also the alternative letter-case form of It.

Pronoun

it (subjective and objective it, reflexive and intensive itself, possessive determiner and pronoun its or (obsolete) his, plural subjective they, plural objective case them)

The third-person singular neuter personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, abstract entity, or non-human living thing.
- Take this book and put it on the shelf.
- Take each day as it comes.
A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a baby or child, especially of unknown gender.
- She took the baby and held it in her arms.
- A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction.1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter IV, in Jane Eyre
(rare) A third-person singular pronoun used to refer to an unspecified person.
- All these things inclined her, step by step, to submit to the new discovery, whether Queen Victoria's or another's, that each man and each woman has another allotted to it for life, whom it supports, by whom it is supported, till death them do part.1928, Virginia Woolf, Orlando, chapter 5
- She had never seen that each human being was different, would react differently, had its own peculiar idiosyncrasies.1959, Agatha Christie, chapter 8, in Ordeal by Innocence
(obsolete) An affectionate third-person singular personal pronoun.
- "[…] It's my belief that you don't know your own mind."
  "I don't, dear," said Hulda, nestling to him.
  "Why, what a puss it is!" cried Sir Philip, kissing her tenderly.1890, George Manville Fenn, Black Blood
- She caught my eye, and laughed. “What a funny girl it is!” she cried. “You are so comical! But it isn't the least use your trying to frighten me. I can see the twinkle in your big black eyes; and I like you in spite of your trying to be horrid. Do you know, I liked you from the first moment I saw...1897, Olive Pratt Rayner (Grant Allen), The Type-Writer Girl
(derogatory, offensive) A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to an animate referent who is transgender or non-binary.
- Next morning bought her [a drag queen] breakfast & she asked for a couple dollars to get a drink. Gave her $3, walked her to a bar. […] Some teenage boys watched us walking & began shouting. When I left her at the bar door & kissed her goodbye, they began shouting "Ugh! You kissed it!!"1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
- "Oh, don't be silly. I am neither male nor female. I'm a farfel." […] "It. Refer to me as an it."
  "That seems pretty rude," I said nervously.
  "Not as rude as calling me a he or a she," it said.1993, Bruce Coville, Aliens Ate My Homework, pages 72–73
Refers to someone being identified, often on the phone, but not limited to this situation.
- It's me, John.
- Somebody wanted a drink, didn't they? Who was it?
The impersonal pronoun, used without referent as the subject of an impersonal verb or statement (known as the dummy pronoun, dummy it or weather it).
- It is nearly 10 o’clock.
- It’s 10:45.
The impersonal pronoun, used without referent, or with unstated but contextually implied referent, in various short idioms or expressions.
- rough it
- live it up
1. Referring to a desirable quality or ability, or quality of being successful, fashionable or in vogue.
  - After all these years, she still has it.
  - Later that night, a friend told Brady, “Still got it.” “Never lost it,” he replied. THAT WAS MOSTLY TRUE. But the 2013 season ended with the Patriots coaches wondering whether Brady's skills were in a subtle but irrevocable decline […]2021, Seth Wickersham, It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, Liveright Publishing, →ISBN
2. Referring to sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.
  - I caught them doing it.
  - Are you getting it regularly?
(uncountable) Sex appeal, especially that which goes beyond physical appearance.
- 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street1904, Rudyard Kipling, Mrs Bathurst
- And she had It. It, hell; she had Those.1927, Dorothy Parker, “Madame Glyn Lectures on 'It,' with Illustrations”, in The New Yorker, published 26 November 1927; republished in Brendan Gill, editor, The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York...
The impersonal pronoun, used as a placeholder for a delayed subject, or less commonly, object; known as the dummy pronoun (according to some definitions), anticipatory it or, more formally in linguistics, a syntactic expletive. The delayed subject is commonly a to-infinitive, a gerund, or a noun clause introduced by a subordinating conjunction.
- It’s not worth talking to you.
- It is easy to see how she would think that.
All or the end; something after which there is no more.
- Are there more students in this class, or is this it?
- That's it—I'm not going to any more candy stores with you.
(obsolete) Followed by an omitted and understood relative pronoun: That which; what.
- In briefe, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it [= it which] wee call Happinesse, and this doe I enjoy [...].1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, II.2

Determiner

(obsolete) Its.
- That which groweth of it owne accord of thy haruest, thou ſhalt not reape, neither gather the grapes of thy Uine vndreſſed: for it is a yeere of reſt vnto the land.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 25:5

Noun (1)

it (plural its)

One who is neither a he nor a she; a creature; a dehumanized being.
- His master glanced up quickly, and removed the letter from his hands. "I'm surprised at you, James," he remarked severely. "A secretary should control itself. Don't forget that the perfect secretary is an it: an automatic machine—a thing incapable of feeling.…"1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, chapter 1, in Bulldog Drummond
- Too often, children become an "it" in their homes and their humanness is devalued.1995, Neil Weiner, Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, Shattered innocence, page 8
The person who chases and tries to catch the other players in the playground game of tag.
- In the next game, Adam and Tom will be it…
- Tag, you're it!
(UK) A game of tag.
- Let's play it at breaktime.
(informal) A desirable characteristic, as being fashionable.
- Man, he's really got it.
- She's the it girl, at least for this Fall.
(informal) Something desirable or suitable.
- Bro, that shirt is not it.
(informal) Sexual intercourse.
- OMG, they were doing it in the storage room.
(informal) Sex appeal.
- She really has it going on.

Adjective (1)

it (not comparable)

(colloquial) Most fashionable, popular, or in vogue.
- Going away for the weekend and feel the need to profile en route? This is the "it" bag.2007 September, Vibe, volume 15, number 9, page 202
- With Hit Girl, Moretz is this year's It Girl, alternately sweet, savage and scary.2010, David Germain, Hilarious ‘Kick-Ass’ delivers bloody fun, Associated Press

Proper noun capitalized: It

(alternative) Alternative form of It.: abbreviation of Italy.
(alternative) Alternative form of It.: abbreviation of Italian (language).

Noun (2) capitalized: It

It (uncountable)

A biological force that inhabits living beings, according to the vitalist approach of Georg Groddeck.
- Georg Groddeck believed in man's innate urge to symbolize. […] kind of defenses that interfere with the free creation of the It. But it would be wrong to call Groddeck an artist (which he was) as opposed to a clinical observer […]1995, Franz Alexander, Samuel Eisenstein, Martin Grotjahn, Psychoanalytic Pioneers, Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, page 319
- […] between the Tao and Georg Groddeck's "It", in Durrell's view, compare for example Lawrence Durrell, "Studies in Genius: IV — Georg Groddeck," Horizon 17.102 (1948) : 392. And what of the It? Groddeck does not claim that […]1999, Stefan Herbrechter, Lawrence Durrell, Postmodernism and the Ethics of Alterity, Rodopi, →ISBN, page 83
The Id, in Freudian psychology.
- I believe that Freud was mistaken when he made the It into an agency without accounting for how the unconscious portion of the I performs the executive functions of object choice for the drives and competing unconscious material […]2014, Jon Mills, Underworlds: Philosophies of the Unconscious from Psychoanalysis to Metaphysics, Routledge, →ISBN, page 63
Alternative letter-case form of it (“desirable quality; quality of being successful, fashionable, in vogue”).
- After selling more than three million copies worldwide of their self- titled 2004 debut, and becoming the new It band, Franz Ferdinand lent songs to both commercials (including "Take Me Out" for Sony's PSP) and art-house porn ...2005, SPIN, page 60
- […] when I remember I can't admit that Bo and Brandon are my boyfriends. One Bellini brother would be okay. Two, apparently, makes me a little too PG-13 for the tweenies. The Bellini Brothers are the new It boy band, ...2007, Melissa Senate, Theodora Twist, Delacorte Press, →ISBN

Noun (3) capitalized: IT

IT (countable and uncountable, plural ITs)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of information technology.
- Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again? Ok. Well, are you sure that it's plugged in?2006 Feb. 17, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 1, Episode 4
- Sources tell WIRED that Bobba, Coristine, Farritor, and Shaotran all currently have working GSA emails and A-suite level clearance at the GSA, which means that they work out of the agency’s top floor and have access to all physical spaces and IT systems, according a source with knowledge of the...2025 February 2, Vittoria Elliott, “The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 02 Feb 2025
Synonyms:

info tech
(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of inclusive tour.
(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of intercept-time method.

Adjective (2) capitalized: IT

IT (not comparable)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of intrathecal.

Also used as

it is also the alternative letter-case form of It.

it meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

it in Hindi

subject — inanimate thing: वह vah, यह yah
object — see also that: वह vah, यह yah

it in Urdu

subject — inanimate thing: وہ vah, یہ yah

it in Kannada

subject — inanimate thing: ಇದು idu, ಅದು adu

More languagesFewer languages

it in Sinhala: එයා eyā, ඌ ū, ඒක ēka
it in Pashto: هغه hağë, ده də
it in Tagalog: taya
it in Arabic: هُوَ huwa, هِيَ hiya, ـهُ -hu
it in Malay: ia
it in Persian: او u, این in, او را u râ
it in Thai: มัน man
it in Vietnamese: nó
it in Myanmar: သူ su

Examples of it in a sentence

I found a poor little cat. It seems to be half starving.
It’s very cold today.
It’s lonely here without you.
It was felt that I'd be the right man for the job.
I find it odd that you would say that.
It is hard seeing you so sick.

All 40 example sentences with it

Synonyms of it

info tech

Forms of it

Pronoun
objective subjective	it
emphatic reflexive	itself
determiner possessive pronoun without-noun	its
plural subjective	they
plural objective	them
determiner possessive pronoun without-noun (obsolete)	his
alternative form (dialectal)	hit
alternative form (colloquial)	i'
alternative form (obsolete)	itt
alternative pronunciation-spelling (archaic)	't
Noun
plural	its
plural	ITs

Plural of it: its

Origin of it

From Middle English it, hit ( > dialectal English hit (“it”)), from Old English hit (“it”), from Proto-West Germanic *hit, from Proto-Germanic *hit (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe (“here; here”). Cognates Cognate with Yola it, t', yt (“it”), North Frisian at, et, 't (“it”), Saterland Frisian et (“it”), West Frisian it (“it”), Dutch het (“it”), Luxembourgish hatt (“her, it, she”), Elfdalian eð (“it”); also Primitive Irish ᚕᚑᚔ (koi, “here”), Latin cis (“short of; before”), hic (“this”), Greek εκείνος (ekeínos, “that; those”). Compare Cimbrian es, is, 's, 'z (“it”), German es, 's (“it, there”), Mòcheno and Vilamovian s (“it”), Yiddish עס (es, “it”), Faroese ið (“that, which, who”), Gothic 𐌹𐍄𐌰 (ita, “it”), which instead descends from Proto-Germanic *it (“it”). More at he.

Words formed from it

Phrases with it

182 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with it

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about it

What does it mean?: It means the third-person singular neuter personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, abstract entity, or non-human living thing.
What is it in Hindi?: It in Hindi is वह (vah), यह (yah). See It meaning in Hindi.
How do you use it in a sentence?: I found a poor little cat. It seems to be half starving.
What part of speech is it?: It can be a pronoun, a determiner, a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce it?: It is pronounced /ɪt/ (UK).

Words near it in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: it (page history and authors); It (page history and authors); IT (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-it.ogg, en-us-it.ogg.

Cite this entry: “it.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/it. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.