hir

English

Etymology

Blend of him/his +‎ her.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /hɪə(ɹ)/
• (US) enPR: hēr, IPA^(key): /hɪɹ/
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ), -ɪ(ɹ)
• Homophones: here, hear

Pronoun

hir (third-person singular, gender-neutral, objective case, reflexive hirself)

1. (nonstandard) Them (singular). Gender-neutral third-person singular object pronoun, coordinate with him and her.
   • 1988, Jeffrey Carver, From a Changeling Star, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 232:

     But once the disorientation had passed, hir forced hirself back to full consciousness--and worked quickly to establish hir position, and Ruskin's.

   • 1996 June, Caitlin Sullivan with Bornstein, Kate, Nearly Roadkill: an Infobahn erotic adventure‎, New York: Serpent's Tail, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, LCC PS3569.U3449 N43 1996, page 10:

     I don't know what Scratch looks like in the real world, I met hir online.

   • 1997 December 18, Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely‎, London, New York: Routledge, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, LCC HQ1075.B69 1998, page 130:

     Words like "freak" became attached to hir name, and I don't believe "brave" was ever a word the media associated with hir.

   • 2000 August 29, Peter David, Renaissance (Star Trek New Frontier: Excalibur #10)‎, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, page 137:

     T'Pau leveled a gaze at hir. "You are male and female ... and neither. 'It' is the proper word. We have no use for semantic games on Vulcan."

Synonyms

• (singular) them
• (neologism) em, per

Hyponyms

• him, her

Derived terms

• (neologism) hirself

Determiner

hir

1. (nonstandard) Belonging to hir, their (singular). Gender-neutral third-person singular possessive adjective, coordinate with his and her.
   • 1971 March 1, Alexander M. Mood, “Partitioning Variance in Multiple Regression Analyses as a Tool For Developing Learning Models”, in American Educational Research Journal, volume 8, number 2, American Educational Research Association, →DOI, page 192:

     Getting down to cases now, a child's learning, L, in the sixth grade will be a function of a number, say k, of variables X1 X2, X3, ... Xk representing hir (hir is an abbreviation for his or her and is pronounced here) previous education, motivation, rapport with teachers, peers' atitudes toward education, teachers' ability, and so on.

   • 1988, Jeffrey Carver, From a Changeling Star, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 232:

     But once the disorientation had passed, hir forced hirself back to full consciousness--and worked quickly to establish hir position, and Ruskin's.

   • 1996 June, Caitlin Sullivan with Bornstein, Kate, Nearly Roadkill: an Infobahn erotic adventure, New York: Serpent's Tail, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OL, LCC PS3569.U3449 N43 1996, page 13:

     It is here that Scratch has found hirself, bored out of hir mind but unable to sleep.

   • 2002, Frank Schaap, The Words That Took Us There: Ethnography in a Virtual Reality, Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, →ISBN, →OL, page 32:

     The player playing hir character in a MUD (usually) tries to portray a credible, convincing person within the theme of that world, using the tools that MUD provides, hir imagination, and hir social and communicative skills.

   • 2011 March 29, Jody Norton, “Transchildren and the Discipline of Children's Literature”, in Kenneth B. Kidd, Michelle Ann Abate, editors, Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature, University of Michigan, →ISBN, LCC PS374.H63 O84 2011, page 305:

     "It's a scientific matter," Ludo announces, explaining hir very out transgender behavior (an ongoing source of embarrassment to hir would-be upwardly mobile parents) as the result of hir other X chromosome's having accidentally fallen into the trash on its way down from heaven.

   • 2011 May 19, Ken Wickham, The Other Genders: Androgyne, Genderqueer, Non-Binary Gender Variant‎, CreateSpace, →ISBN, page 7:

     Sie may feel that hir actual identity of hir gender is supposed to be both/neither male or female, outside of gender, third gender, beyond gender, absence of gender, mixing gender, changing gender, or all genders.

   • 2023 June 22, Kurt Soller, Liz Brown, Rose Courteau, Kate Guadagnino, Sara Holdren, “The 25 Most Influential Works of Postwar Queer Literature”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     A lifelong political activist, Leslie Feinberg (who used the pronoun hir) devoted most of hir writing to exploring the complexities of gender.

Usage notes

A declension shared by several gender-neutral pronoun schemata. Subjective forms associated with hir include s/he, sie, shi, and ze. For additional considerations regarding use among members of the genderqueer community, see usage notes for ze.

Synonyms

• (singular) their
• (neologism) eir

Hyponyms

• his, her

Derived terms

• (neologism) hirs

See also

• other attested gender-neutral pronouns

Anagrams

• IHR

Albanian

Etymology

Possibly from Proto-Albanian *skīra, from a Proto-Indo-European *sḱeyr-o- (“shine, reflex”), whence German schier (“pure, clear”), Polish szczery (“sincere, earnest”), Ancient Greek σκίρον (skíron, “parasol”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hiːɾ/

Noun

hir m (plural hire, definite hiri, definite plural hiret)

1. kindness, favor, sake
2. willingness, goodwill
3. beauty, grace, charm, dignity
4. (religious) heavenly grace

Derived terms

References

Aromanian

Alternative forms

• hjir, hiru

Etymology

From Latin fīlum. Compare Daco-Romanian fir.

Noun

hir n (plural hiri or hire)

1. thread

Derived terms

• hirush
• nhiric

Related terms

• nhir

Baure

Alternative forms

• jir

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hir/

Noun

hir

1. man

Breton

Etymology

From Middle Breton hir, from Proto-Brythonic *hir, from Proto-Celtic *sīros.

Adjective

hir

1. long

Antonyms

• berr

Burushaski

Noun

hir (plural huri)

1. man (clarification of this definition is needed)

Latin

Alternative forms

• ir

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *hezor, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰésōr. Cognate with Ancient Greek χείρ (kheír).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /hir/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ir/,

Noun

hir n sg (indeclinable, no genitive)

1. (rare, anatomy) hand

Declension

Not declined; used only in the nominative and accusative singular, singular only.

Synonyms

• (hand): manus

References

• “hir”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• hir in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Luxembourgish

Etymology

From Old High German ira, from Proto-Germanic *hezōi.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hiːʀ/, ,
• Homophone: hier

Pronoun

hir

1. third-person feminine singular, dative: her, to her

   Ech schreiwen hir e Bréif

   I'm writing her a letter

Declension

Pronoun

hir

1. third-person singular feminine possessive, feminine object, nominative: her
2. third-person singular feminine possessive, plural object, nominative: her
3. third-person singular feminine possessive, feminine object, accusative: her
4. third-person singular feminine possessive, plural object, accusative: her
5. third-person plural possessive, feminine object, nominative: their
6. third-person plural possessive, plural object, nominative: their
7. third-person plural possessive, feminine object, accusative: their
8. third-person plural possessive, plural object, accusative: their

Declension

Middle English

Etymology 1

Determiner

hir

1. Alternative form of hire (“her”)

Pronoun

hir

1. Alternative form of hire (“hers”)

Etymology 2

Pronoun

hir

1. Alternative form of hire (“her”)

Etymology 3

Noun

hir

1. Alternative form of hire (“wages”)

Portuguese

Verb

hir (first-person singular present indicative vou, past participle hido)

1. Obsolete spelling of ir

Conjugation

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xîːr/

Noun

hȋr m (Cyrillic spelling хи̑р)

1. whim, caprice

Declension

Sumerian

Romanization

hir

1. Romanization of 𒆟 (ḫir)

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hiːr/
• Rhymes: -iːr

Etymology 1

From Middle Welsh and Old Welsh hir, from Proto-Brythonic *hir, from Proto-Celtic *sīros.

Adjective

hir (feminine singular hir, plural hirion, equative cyhyd, comparative hwy or hirach, superlative hwyaf or hiraf, not mutable)

1. long

   Synonyms: hirfaith, llaes, maith

   Antonyms: byr, cwta

   Mae gynni hi wallt hir.

   She has long hair.

   Roedd y daith yn hir iawn.

   The journey was very long.

Derived terms

• hiraeth (“longing”)
• hirgrwn (“oval”)
• hirsgwar (“long and narrow, oblong”)
• hirsgwar (“rectangle, oblong”)

Etymology 2

Adjective

hir

1. h-prothesized form of ir

Mutation

References

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “hir”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies