His

How to spell his

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce his

What does his mean?

1. determinerBelonging to or associated with a male person or animal previously mentioned.
2. pronounThe thing or things belonging to a male person previously mentioned.

His in a sentence

• determiner

  He left his keys on the kitchen counter again.

• pronoun

  The blue coat on the hook is his, not mine.

• determiner

  The manager praised his team for finishing the report early.

• pronoun

  She borrowed a pen because hers was empty and his still worked.

Where does his come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This little word comes straight from Old English, where it was the genitive (possessive) form of the masculine pronoun he, written exactly as 'his'. It belongs to the oldest layer of the language, the native Germanic core that English shares with Dutch, German and the Scandinavian tongues. In early English 'his' did double duty, serving as the possessive for both 'he' and the neuter 'it', which is why older texts say things like 'the sun in his glory'; the separate word 'its' only emerged much later, around the 1600s, to fill that gap. Because the word descends unbroken from Old English, its spelling has stayed remarkably simple and stable for well over a thousand years. Its closest relatives are the everyday pronouns 'he' and 'him', all formed from the same ancient root.

How the word is built

• hi- (from Old English masculine genitive)
• -s (genitive ending)