pron 1. referring to people or things ○ Where do you keep the spoons? – They’re in the right-hand drawer. ○ Who are those people in uniform? – They’re traffic wardens. ○ The children played in the sun and they all got sunburnt. 2. referring to people in general ○ They say it’s going to be fine this weekend. 3. referring to a singular, used instead of ‘he or she’ after a word such as ‘someone’ ○ If someone else joins the queue, they’ll just have to wait. (NOTE: When it is the object, them is used instead of they: We gave it to them; The police beat them with sticks; also when it follows the verb to be: Who’s that? – It’s them!)
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they
(tha), pron. pl.; poss.Theirs; obj.Them. [Icel. þeir they, properly nom. pl. masc. of sa, su, þat, a demonstrative pronoun, akin to the English definite article, AS. se, seó, ðaet, nom. pl. ða. See That.] The plural of he, she, or it. They is never used adjectively, but always as a pronoun proper, and sometimes refers to persons without an antecedent expressed. “Jolif and glad they went unto here [their] rest And casten hem [them] full early for to sail.” Chaucer. “They of Italy salute you.” Heb. xiii. 24. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Matt. v. 6.They is used indefinitely, as our ancestors used man, and as the French use on; as they say (French on dit), that is, it is said by persons not specified.
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