þei

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See also: yei, thei, and Yei

Gothic

Romanization

þei

  1. Romanization of 𐌸𐌴𐌹

Middle English

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Old Norse þeir.

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Pronoun

þei (accusative þem, genitive þeires, þeiren, possessive determiner þeir)

  1. Third-person plural pronoun: they
    • c. 1335-1361, William of Palerne (MS. King's College 13), folio 25, recto, lines 1414-1415; republished as W. W. Skeat, editor, The Romance of William of Palerne, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1867, →OCLC, page 52:
      but algate alyſaundꝛine · atte wille hem ſerued / þat non knew here · cunseile but þei þre one
      But Alexandrine would always help them whenever they wanted, so nobody would know their secret except for the three of them.
  2. (rare) Third-person singular pronoun: they
    • c. 1335-1361, William of Palerne (MS. King's College 13), folio 36, recto, lines 2177-2179; republished as W. W. Skeat, editor, The Romance of William of Palerne, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1867, →OCLC, page 74:
      þan haſtely hiȝed eche wiȝt · on hoꝛſe ⁊ on fote / huntyng wiȝt houndes · alle heie wodes / til þei neyȝyed ſo neiȝh · to nymphe þe ſoþe
      Then each man went quickly, hunting with hounds amongst tall trees, on horse and on foot, until he came close enough to notice the truth.
  3. (demonstrative) those
Descendants
  • English: they
  • Scots: thay
  • Yola: thaaye, thaay, thaye, thye, a
See also
References
  1. ^ Brink, Daniel (1992), “Variation between <þ-> and <t-> in the Ormulum”, in Irmengard Rauch, Gerald F. Carr and Robert L. Kyes, editors, On Germanic Linguistics: Issues and Methods (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs; 68), De Gruyter Mouton, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 21-35.
  2. ^ Thurber, Beverly A. (15 February 2011), “Voicing of Initial Interdental Fricatives in Early Middle English Function Words”, in Journal of Germanic Linguistics, volume 23, issue 1, Cambridge University Press, →DOI, pages 65-81.
  3. ^ thei, pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

Determiner

þei

  1. Alternative form of þi (thy)

Etymology 3

Pronoun

þei

  1. (Northern) Alternative form of þe (thee)

Etymology 4

Noun

þei (plural þeies)

  1. Alternative form of þigh (thigh)

Etymology 5

Adverb

þei

  1. (Early Middle English) Alternative form of þouȝ (though)

Conjunction

þei

  1. (Early Middle English) Alternative form of þouȝ (though)

Etymology 6

Numeral

þei

  1. Alternative form of tweyn (two)