ye

See also Appendix:Variations of "ye"

English

Wikipedia

Etymology 1

From Middle English ye, ȝe, from Old English ġē (“ye”), the nominative case of the second-person plural personal pronoun, from West Germanic *jīz, variant of Proto-Germanic *jūz (“ye”), from Proto-Indo-European *yūs (“ye”), *yū́, plural of túh₂. Cognate with Scots ye (“ye”), Dutch gij, jij, je (“ye”), Low German ji, jie (“ye”), German ihr (“ye”), Danish and Swedish I (“ye”), Icelandic ér (“ye”). See also you.

Alternative forms

• ȝe (chiefly in Middle English)

Pronunciation

• (RP) & (US) IPA: /jiː/, X-SAMPA: /ji:/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iː

Pronoun

ye personal pronoun

1. (dialectal, Northern England, Cornish, Ireland or archaic) you (the people being addressed).

Usage notes

Ye was originally used only for the nominative case (as the subject), and only for the second-person plural. Later, ye was used as a subject or an object, either singular or plural, which is the way that you is used today.

Derived terms

• d’ye
• hear ye
• ye’d
• ye gods
• ye’ll
• ye’re
• ye’ve

References

• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin, [1]

Verb

ye (present participle yeyn)

1. (obsolete) Address a single person by the use of the pronoun ye instead of thou.
   • 1483, Catholicon Anglicum: An English–Latin Wordbook (Monson 168), page 426

     To ȝe, vosare jn plurali numero vos vestrum vel tibi [perh. read vobis].

   • 1511, Promptorium Parvulorum (de Worde), sig. M.iiiᵛ/2

     Yeyn or sey ye with worshyp, viso.

Synonyms

• (address by the pronoun ye): yeet (obsolete)

Antonyms

• (address by the pronoun ye): thowt (obsolete)

Etymology 2

From Middle English þe. The letter y is a variant of þ (“thorn”), a letter which corresponds to modern th, but letter þ did not exist in first press typographies, so was replaced using either "th" or "y". Etymological y was for a time distinguished by a dot, ẏ, but the letters were conflated when that was dropped.

Pronunciation

• Traditionally pronounced the same as the, but now often pronounced with the ordinary sound of <y>: IPA: /jiː/

Article

ye

1. (archaic, definite) the
   • 1647, The old deluder, Satan, Act. (cited in American Public School Law, K. Alexander, M. Alexander, 1995)

     It being one cheife proiect of y^e ould deluder, Satan, to keepe men from the knowledge of v Scriptures, as in form^r times by keeping y^m in an unknowne tongue, so in these latt^r times by perswading from y^e use of tongues, y^t so at least y^e true sence & meaning of y^e originall might be clouded by false glosses of saint seeming deceivers, y^t learning may not be buried in y^e church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting o^r endeavo^rs,—

   • Ye Olde Medicine Shoppe.

Derived terms

• ye olde

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: sort · town · dark · #437: ye · common · subject · can't

Anagrams

• ey

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Asturian

Verb

ye

1. third-person singular present indicative of ser

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Catawba

Noun

ye

1. Man (adult male human), person.
2. Native American Indian.

Usage notes

The vowel sounds may permutate, and transcription methods differ, such that the word can be represented in any of the following ways: ye`, ye', ye´ (reflecting differing transcriptions); yé, yí, or yę (reflecting vowel permutation); yä´n, inyen, or įyę (reflecting vowel permutation and differing transcription).

References

• 1858: Oscar M. Lieber, Vocabulary of the Catawba Language.
• 1900: Albert S. Gatschet, Grammatic Sketch of the Catawba Language (published in the American Anthropologist).
• 1942: Frank G. Speck and C. E. Shaeffer, Catawba Kinship and Social Organization.
• 1945: Frank T. Siebert, Jr., Linguistic Classification of Catawba (published in the International Journal of American Linguistics).

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Haitian Creole

Etymology

Verb

ye

1. Form of se used at the end of a phrase, after the predicate and the subject, in that order; to be.

   Kimoun ou ye? (Who are you?; literally, Who you are?)

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Ido

Preposition

ye

1. at

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Mandarin

Romanization

ye

1. Nonstandard spelling of yē.
2. Nonstandard spelling of yé.
3. Nonstandard spelling of yě.
4. Nonstandard spelling of yè.

Usage notes

English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

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Middle English

Noun

ye (plural)

1. eyes
   • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, General Prologue, lines 9–10:

     And smale foweles maken melodye, / That slepen al the nyght with open ye.

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Scots

Pronoun

ye

1. you

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Spanish

Noun

ye f (plural yes)

1. Name of the letter y.

Synonyms

• i griega (deprecated)

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Turkish

Etymology 1

Noun

ye

1. The name of the Latin script letter Y/y.

See also

• (Latin script letter names) harf; a, be, ce, çe, de, e, fe, ge, yumuşak ge, he, ı, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, ö, pe, re, se, şe, te, u, ü, ve, ye, ze ^{(Category: tr:Latin letter names)}

Etymology 2

From Persian یه (ye).

Noun

ye

1. Last letter of the Arabic alphabet: ي

• • Previous: و

Verb

ye

1. Second-person imperative of yemek.

Antonyms

• yeme

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Uzbek

Verb

ye

1. imperative of yemoq

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Volapük

Conjunction

ye

1. however

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Zulu

Pronoun

-ye

1. Combining stem of yena.

See also

Class 1 concords^[edit]

Full noun prefix:	umu-2, um-, u-3
Basic noun prefix:	mu-2, m-, -3
Subject concord:	u-, -ka-
Object concord:	-mu-2, -m-
Possessive concord:	wa-
Adjective concord:	omu-1, om-
Relative concord:	o-
Pronoun:	yena, -ye, -khe1
1 With possessive concords. 2 With single-syllable stems. 3 With class 1a nouns.
See Appendix:Zulu concords for a full table.