Wiktionary

yours

See also: Yours and your's

English

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Alternative forms

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  • your's (archaic, now mis-spelling)

Etymology

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From Middle English youres, ȝoures, attested since the 1300s. Equivalent to your +‎ -s (compare -'s); formed by analogy to his. Displaced yourn in standard speech.[1]

Pronunciation

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Pronoun

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yours

  1. That which belongs to you (singular); the possessive second-person singular pronoun used without a following noun.
    If this edit is mine, the other must be yours.  Their encyclopedia is good, but yours is even better.  It’s all yours.
  2. That which belongs to you (plural); the possessive second-person plural pronoun used without a following noun.
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
      “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. […]”
  3. Written at the end of a letter, before the signature.
    Yours sincerely,  Yours faithfully,  Yours,  Sincerely yours,

Usage notes

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  • In British English the adverb almost invariably follows the word yours at the end of a letter; in most dialects of American English it usually precedes it. As a general rule, sincerely is only employed if the name of the recipient is already known to the writer; a letter begun with Dear Sir or Dear Madam finishes with faithfully. Yours on its own and yours ever are less formal than the other forms.

Synonyms

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  • yourn (obsolete outside Britain and US dialects, especially Appalachia)

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

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English personal pronouns
Dialectal and obsolete or archaic forms are in italics.
personal pronoun possessive
pronoun		 possessive
determiner
subjective objective reflexive
first person singular I
me (colloquial)		 me myself
me
mysen		 mine my
mine (before vowels, archaic)
me
plural we us ourselves
ourself
oursen		 ours our
second person singular standard, formal you you yourself
yoursen		 yours
yourn (obsolete outside dialects)		 your
archaic, informal thou thee thyself
theeself
thysen		 thine thy
thine (before vowels)
plural standard you
ye (archaic)		 you yourselves yours
yourn (obsolete outside dialects)		 your
colloquial you all
y'all
you guys		 you all
y'all
you guys		 y'allselves y'all's
you guys'
your guys' (proscribed)		 y'all's
your all's (nonstandard)
you guys'
your guys' (proscribed)
informal / dialectal (see list of dialectal forms at you and inflected forms in those entries)
third person singular masculine he him himself
hisself (archaic)
hissen		 his
hisn (obsolete outside dialects)		 his
feminine she her herself
hersen		 hers
hern (obsolete outside dialects)		 her
neuter it
hit		 it
hit		 itself
hitself		 its
his (archaic)		 its
his (archaic)
hits
genderless they them themself, themselves theirs their
genderless, nonspecific
(formal) 		one one oneself – one's
plural they them
hem, 'em		 themselves
theirsen		 theirs
theirn (obsolete outside dialects)		 their

References

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  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “yours”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Middle English

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Pronoun

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yours

  1. Alternative form of youres
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