- Used to refer to the man or boy previously mentioned or implied.
- Used to refer to a male animal.
- Usage Problem. Used to refer to a person whose gender is unspecified or unknown: "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence" (William Blake).
A male person or animal: Is the cat a he?
[Middle English, from Old English hē.]
USAGE NOTE Traditionally the pronouns he, him, and his have been used as generic or gender-neutral singular pronouns, as in A novelist should write about what he knows best and No one seems to take any pride in his work anymore. Since the early 20th century, however, this usage has come under increasing criticism for reflecting and perpetuating gender stereotyping. • Defenders of the traditional usage have argued that the masculine pronouns he, his, and him can be used generically to refer to men and women. This analysis of the generic use of he is linguistically doubtful. If he were truly a gender-neutral form, we would expect that it could be used to refer to the members of any group containing both men and women. But in fact the English masculine form is an odd choice when it refers to a female member of such a group. There is something plainly disconcerting about sentences such as Each of the stars ofeach, every, neither, one, she, they.
he2 (hā)
n.
The fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
[Hebrew hē, of Phoenician origin.]
