Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use they in a sentence

40 example sentences · pronoun, determiner, verb

They means a group of entities previously mentioned. Example: “Fred and Jane? They just arrived.”

Examples of they by meaning

pronounA group of entities previously mentioned.

  • Fred and Jane? They just arrived.
  • Dogs may bark if they want to be fed.
  • Plants wilt if they are not watered.

pronounOne whose gender is unknown, irrelevant, or both.

  • Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him.1997, J. K. Rowling, chapter 10, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, (quoted edition: London: Bloomsbury, 2000, →ISBN, page 187)
  • One thing a nominee earns is the right to pick the vice president that they think will best reflect their vision of the country, and I am just glad I will have nothing to do with it.2008, Michelle Obama, quoted in Lisa Rogak, Michelle Obama in Her Own Words, New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2009. →ISBN, page 18
  • I'm angry that we're here again, that we have had to tell another mother that their child is dead.2015 April, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (mayor of Baltimore), commenting on the death of Freddie Gray

pronounPeople; some people; people in general; someone, excluding the speaker.

  • They say it’s a good place to live.
  • They didn’t have computers in the old days.
  • They built this city on rock and roll.

pronounThe authorities, the (power) elites, the powers that be, the establishment, the man, the system: government, police...

  • They'll tax us for the air we breathe next.
  • They should increase our wages.
  • Ha, you believe the moon is real? That's just what they want you to think.

determinerThe, those.

  • "Bodies and souls," she cried, "if I didn't reckon to have hidden they boots safe from un in the stick-rick." "Off wi' they tight-wasted shoes o' yours, Martha."1901, Gwendoline Keats (of Devon), Tales of Dunstáble Weir, page 55
  • No shy they British Rail cunts, ah kin fuckin tell ye.1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 114

determinerTheir.

  • MARY ELLEN is a different case from the others.1974, Arthur Hippler, Hunter's Point: a black ghetto in America, page 88
  • It's a shame to see someone talk so bad about the gays and lesbians in prison.1988 February 7, Mike Riegle, quoting John Royal, “Why Does GCN Have A Prisoner Project?”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 29...
  • He guessed one of the well-off people living in these houses must have took a shine to Cody and decided how he'd look good stuck up on they roof.2016, Alan Moore, Jerusalem, Liveright, published 2016, page 175

pronounThere (especially as an expletive subject of be).

  • She has five children and, she claims: "I don't know who they father is.1974, Arthur Hippler, Hunter's Point: a black ghetto in America, page 88
  • They ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.2000, Janice Giles, Hill Man, page 58
  • But they ain’t nothin’ in there you didn’t already have.2008, Christian Carvajal, Lightfall, page 82

More sentences with they

  • I wonder how they do this on the other side of the pond.From the entry pond
  • They found only minute quantities of chemical residue on his clothing.From the entry minute
  • They improve their product every year; they export most of their agricultural production.From the entry product
  • They are persons of ability, who will go far in life.From the entry ability
  • I can’t find my reading glasses, but they must be somewhere about the house.From the entry about
  • I had my keys just a minute ago, so they must be about somewhere.From the entry about
  • All they could ever do was to shout abusive inanities at me.From the entry abusive
  • They tried to colour the industrial unrest as a merely local matter.From the entry color
  • They tried to zero the budget by the end of the quarter.From the entry zero
  • I don’t know how many books are in the library, but they must number in the thousands.From the entry number
  • They had a vibrant culture from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD.From the entry ad
  • They were discounted because they contained blemishes, nicks or were otherwise factory seconds.From the entry second
  • How were they to know the whole exercise was a ruse?From the entry be
  • They were to have been married overseas but COVID forced a change of plans.From the entry be
  • They met a couple of years ago, but have been dating for about five months.From the entry date
  • They guaranteed that our Web site would have 99.99% uptime, or four nines.From the entry nine
  • They make beef stock from the butchery scraps that they otherwise might not have used.From the entry stock
  • We can’t phone now – they will certainly have gone to bed.From the entry now
  • They proposed an ambitious plan to bank people in remote rural communities.From the entry bank
  • I think some Christians would love Jesus more if they weren't so stuck in religion.From the entry religion

Meaning of they

  1. pronoun A group of entities previously mentioned.
  2. pronoun One whose gender is unknown, irrelevant, or both.
  3. pronoun One who is nonbinary.

Full definition of they

Questions about they in a sentence

How do you use they in a sentence?
They is used as a pronoun, determiner and verb. For example: “Fred and Jane? They just arrived.”
What is a short sentence with they?
“They should increase our wages.”
What does they mean?
They means a group of entities previously mentioned.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: they (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use they in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/they. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.