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.
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.
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I found a poor little cat. It seems to be half starving.
It is not a pen. It is a book.2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
The Nansi District was formerly known as the "Jiaba Community", and was one of the early territories of the Taivoan, as well as where the Zou resided. Later, due to the invasion of the Siraya tribe, the community members later migrated out to regions such as Gongguan, Paoziliao (Kaohsiung County), and Daciouyuan. During the time of the Japanese occupation, because of its location at the west of the "Nanzihsian River", it was therefore renamed Nansi ("si" meaning "west"). A village and village hall were established here, under the governance of Sinhua District of Tainan Province. After the war in 1945, it was renamed Nansi Township, and was changed to Nansi District after the merging of Tainan City and County on December 25th, 2010.2018 August 6, “Brief Introduction of Nansi”, in Nansi District Office, Tainan City, archived from the original on 16 Feb 2022:
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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:
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I could only encourage Mrs. Clements to speak next of Anne's early days […] "There was nobody else, sir, to take the little helpless creature in hand," replied Mrs. Clements. "The wicked mother seemed to hate it—as if the poor baby was in fault!—from the day it was born. My heart was heavy for the child, and I made the offer to bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own." "Did Anne remain entirely under your care from that time?" "Not quite entirely, sir. Mrs. Catherick had her whims and fancies about it at times, and used now and then to lay claim to the child, as if she wanted to spite me for bringing it up.1859, Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White:
The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn't quite managed.2005, Marcus Zusak, The Book Thief, part 10:
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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:
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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:
1897, Olive Pratt Rayner (Grant Allen), The Type-Writer Girl 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 you.”
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WILLIAM: You don't like me better? CLARA: Indeed I do. WILLIAM (laughing): Well, what a dear girl it is. CLARA (flinging her arms around his neck with suddenly disclosed passion): Oh, I do love you!1905, The Harvard Monthly, volumes 39-40, page 183:
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Derogatory, Offensive A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to an animate referent who is transgender or non-binary.
1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure 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!!"
"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:
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The individual known as Maia Arson Crimew was born as Tillie Kottmann on 7 August 1999 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Kottmann/Crimew has expressed on its website a desire to be referred to by ‘it’ pronouns (Crimew 2021), so this article will interchangeably refer to it by its preferred terms as either ‘Maia Arson Crimew’ or ‘it’. Crimew is a well-known figure among hacking and cybersecurity circles. It has either taken credit for or been attributed to hacks from several major multinational corporations, including […]2024 January 16, Matteo Garofalo, “Singular Purpose: Calculating the Degree of Ethno-Religious Over-representation in the USNo-Fly List”, in International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy:
According to the lawsuit, he showed Richards' picture in several weekly meetings, misgendering her, and telling employees to watch out for "him or it or whatever it is."2026 April 17, Noah Shachtman, Robert Silverman, quoting John Eversole, “The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine”, in Wired:
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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?
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It is I, your king.
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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.
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It’s very cold today.
It’s lonely here without you.
It seems so.
It blew all night.
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The impersonal pronoun, used without referent, or with unstated but contextually implied referent, in various short idioms or expressions.
rough it
live it up
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stick it out
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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:
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Referring to sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.
I caught them doing it.
Are you getting it regularly?
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Is man really the only animal who does "it" face to face?1968, Dear Doctor Hip Pocrates; advice your family doctor never gave you, page 5:
The great advantage of English public school life lies of course in the quality of tutelage it provides. Adrian had received a decent and broad English education in the area of his loins. […] He had quickly happened upon the truth which many lonely contemporaries would never discover, the truth that everybody, simply everybody, was panting for it and could, with patience, be shown that they were panting for it. So Adrian grabbed what was to hand and had the time of his life genitally – focusing exclusively on his own gender of course, for this was 1973 and girls had not yet been invented.1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 10:
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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: Penguin, 1976, pages 464-468:
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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.
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"I know now!" said I. "I have seen this in your face a long while." "No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is to read a face!"1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
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.
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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.
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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:
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.
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:
it
noun
Etymology
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.
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:
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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!
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When you play hi-spy, and are “it,” and want to know where the others have hid, take a stick and put it up on end and let it fall. If it falls three times in the same direction, that shows you the way to go to find the hiders.1896, Clifton Johnson, “Odds”, in What They Say in New England (non-fiction), Boston, Massachusetts, United States: Lee and Shepard Publishers, page 66:
When there are only two children left who haven't been tagged, I will stop the game, and we will start over with those children starting as the Its.2000, Katherine T. Thomas, Amelia M. Lee, Jerry R. Thomas, Physical education for children, page 464:
Alternative letter-case form of It (“force in the vitalist approach of Georg Groddeck”).
For Groddeck, the it is given, unknowable, and he does not try to conceptualize drives or forces. Early life and sexuality permeate […]1988, Frederic D. Homer, The Interpretation of Illness, Purdue University Press, →ISBN, page 27:
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Alternative letter-case form of It (“the id”).
[…] thus reversing the roles of the I and the it, the former now occupying the place of the latter and vice versa. An awareness of our bisubjective nature (it and me) requires thus an I as a third term that slides between […]2015, Charis Charalampous, Rethinking the Mind-Body Relationship in Early Modern Literature, Philosophy, and Medicine: The Renaissance of the Body, Routledge, →ISBN, page 36:
it
adj
Etymology
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.
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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:
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These Italian made sneakers quickly became an it shoe and the trend is not going anywhere any time soon!2021 October 4, Robert P, “Are Golden Goose Sneakers Worth It? My Honest Review Of Golden Goose Sneakers”, in Gold Talk Club, archived from the original on 15 Jul 2024:
(Our culture's “it”-novelist, Sally Rooney, is instead tellingly God-obsessed.)2025 May 31, Tanjil Rashid, “Finding their religion”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9:
It
noun
1
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:
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I wanted to better understand the concept of the It in Georg Groddeck's Book of the It (1923). Groddeck never clearly defined the It, but it was virtually synonymous with the forces of the id. In fact Freud (1923) derived the word Id from It.2002, Sharon Klayman Farber, When the Body Is the Target: Self-Harm, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments, Jason Aronson, Incorporated, →ISBN:
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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:
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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:
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People will often tell you that you shouldn't buy this season's It bag, dress, or whatever a celebrity has recently been photographed wearing because (a) you will be deemed to be a fashion victim, (b) everyone else will have it ...2008, Hadley Freeman, The Meaning of Sunglasses: And a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable, Penguin, →ISBN, page 169:
This may seem an odd choice for the former It Girl (and the mother of the new It Boy), but […]2010, Martha H. Swain, Elizabeth Anne Payne, Marjorie Julian Spruill, Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 228:
Since, as rock critic Georgia Christgau said at the 2008 EMP Pop Conference, “[Willis] cared less about rock than she did about movements,” covering the new It band was just not that important to her. As her daughter, I have received an ...2011, Ellen Willis, Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music, U of Minnesota Press, →ISBN:
“He said I'll go from being this season's villain to being this season's It girl.”2017, Kelly Killoren, The Second Course: A Novel, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 235: