Him

How to spell him

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce him

What does him mean?

1. pronounThe objective form of 'he', used for a male person or animal as the object of a verb or preposition.

Him in a sentence

• The manager asked him to finish the report by Friday.

• She handed him the keys before leaving for work.

Where does him come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from Old English 'him', which was originally the dative form of the masculine pronoun 'he', meaning roughly 'to him' or 'for him'. In the older grammar, English distinguished a dative case from an accusative case ('hine'), but over the medieval centuries the accusative form faded away and 'him' took over as the single object form we use today. The root belongs to a very old Germanic family of pronouns, sharing ancestry with the Dutch 'hem' and related forms across the West Germanic languages. Because it is one of the most frequently used words in the language, it kept its short, settled spelling. Its main spelling pitfall is that it sounds identical to 'hymn', the religious song, whose silent 'n' and 'y' come from a completely separate Greek source.

How the word is built

• him (Old English him, dative/accusative of 'he')

Words that sound like him

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• hymn: A song of praise, especially one sung by a congregation during a religious service.