it

One who is neither a he nor a she; a creature; a dehumanized being.

Adjective

  1. Most fashionable, popular, or in vogue.
    • Going away for the weekend and feel the need to profile en route? This is the "it" bag. - 2007 September, Vibe, volume 15, number 9, page 202:
    • With Hit Girl, Moretz is this year's It Girl, alternately sweet, savage and scary. - 2010, David Germain, Hilarious ‘Kick-Ass’ delivers bloody fun, Associated Press:
    • These Italian made sneakers quickly became an it shoe and the trend is not going anywhere any time soon! - 2021 October 4, Robert P, “Are Golden Goose Sneakers Worth It? My Honest Review Of Golden Goose Sneakers”, in...

Origin

From Middle English it, hit ( > dialectal English hit (“it”)), from Old English hit (“it”), from Proto-West Germanic *hit, from Proto-Germanic *hit (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe (“here; here”). Cognates Cognate with Yola it, t', yt (“it”), North Frisian at, et, 't (“it”), Saterland Frisian et (“it”), West Frisian it (“it”), Dutch het (“it”), Luxembourgish hatt (“her, it, she”), Elfdalian eð (“it”); also Primitive Irish ᚕᚑᚔ (koi, “here”), Latin cis (“short of; before”), hic (“this”), Greek εκείνος (ekeínos, “that; those”). Compare Cimbrian es, is, 's, 'z (“it”), German es, 's (“it, there”), Mòcheno and Vilamovian s (“it”), Yiddish עס (es, “it”), Faroese ið (“that, which, who”), Gothic 𐌹𐍄𐌰 (ita, “it”), which instead descends from Proto-Germanic *it (“it”). More at he.

Forms

hit i' itt 't

Determiner

  1. Its.
    • That which groweth of it owne accord of thy haruest, thou ſhalt not reape, neither gather the grapes of thy Uine vndreſſed: for it is a yeere of reſt vnto the land. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version),...

Forms

hit i' itt 't

Noun

  1. One who is neither a he nor a she; a creature; a dehumanized being.
    • His master glanced up quickly, and removed the letter from his hands. "I'm surprised at you, James," he remarked severely. "A secretary should control itself. Don't forget that the perfect secretary is an it: an...
    • Too often, children become an "it" in their homes and their humanness is devalued. - 1995, Neil Weiner, Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius, Shattered innocence, page 8:
  2. The person who chases and tries to catch the other players in the playground game of tag.
    • In the next game, Adam and Tom will be it…
    • Tag, you're it!
    • When you play hi-spy, and are “it,” and want to know where the others have hid, take a stick and put it up on end and let it fall. If it falls three times in the same direction, that shows you the way to go to find the...
  3. A game of tag.
    • Let's play it at breaktime.
  4. A desirable characteristic, as being fashionable.
    • Man, he's really got it.
    • She's the it girl, at least for this Fall.
  5. Something desirable or suitable.
    • Bro, that shirt is not it.
  6. Sexual intercourse.
    • OMG, they were doing it in the storage room.
  7. Sex appeal.
    • She really has it going on.
  8. Alternative letter-case form of It (“force in the vitalist approach of Georg Groddeck”).
    • For Groddeck, the it is given, unknowable, and he does not try to conceptualize drives or forces. Early life and sexuality permeate […] - 1988, Frederic D. Homer, The Interpretation of Illness, Purdue University Press,...
  9. Alternative letter-case form of It (“the id”).
    • […] thus reversing the roles of the I and the it, the former now occupying the place of the latter and vice versa. An awareness of our bisubjective nature (it and me) requires thus an I as a third term that slides...

Forms

its hit i' itt 't

Pronoun

  1. The third-person singular neuter personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, abstract entity, or non-human living thing.
    • Take this book and put it on the shelf.
    • Take each day as it comes.
    • I found a poor little cat. It seems to be half starving.
  2. A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a baby or child, especially of unknown gender.
    • She took the baby and held it in her arms.
    • A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. - 1847,...
    • I could only encourage Mrs. Clements to speak next of Anne's early days […] "There was nobody else, sir, to take the little helpless creature in hand," replied Mrs. Clements. "The wicked mother seemed to hate it—as if...
  3. A third-person singular pronoun used to refer to an unspecified person.
    • All these things inclined her, step by step, to submit to the new discovery, whether Queen Victoria's or another's, that each man and each woman has another allotted to it for life, whom it supports, by whom it is...
    • She had never seen that each human being was different, would react differently, had its own peculiar idiosyncrasies. - 1959, Agatha Christie, chapter 8, in Ordeal by Innocence:
  4. An affectionate third-person singular personal pronoun.
    • "[…] It's my belief that you don't know your own mind." "I don't, dear," said Hulda, nestling to him. "Why, what a puss it is!" cried Sir Philip, kissing her tenderly. - 1890, George Manville Fenn, Black Blood:
    • 1897, Olive Pratt Rayner (Grant Allen), The Type-Writer Girl She caught my eye, and laughed. “What a funny girl it is!” she cried. “You are so comical! But it isn't the least use your trying to frighten me. I can see...
    • WILLIAM: You don't like me better? CLARA: Indeed I do. WILLIAM (laughing): Well, what a dear girl it is. CLARA (flinging her arms around his neck with suddenly disclosed passion): Oh, I do love you! - 1905, The Harvard...
  5. A third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to an animate referent who is transgender or non-binary.
    • 1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure Next morning bought her [a drag queen] breakfast & she asked for a couple dollars to get a drink....
    • "Oh, don't be silly. I am neither male nor female. I'm a farfel." […] "It. Refer to me as an it." "That seems pretty rude," I said nervously. "Not as rude as calling me a he or a she," it said. - 1993, Bruce Coville,...
    • The individual known as Maia Arson Crimew was born as Tillie Kottmann on 7 August 1999 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Kottmann/Crimew has expressed on its website a desire to be referred to by ‘it’ pronouns (Crimew 2021), so...
  6. Refers to someone being identified, often on the phone, but not limited to this situation.
    • It's me, John.
    • Somebody wanted a drink, didn't they? Who was it?
    • It is I, your king.
  7. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent as the subject of an impersonal verb or statement (known as the dummy pronoun, dummy it or weather it).
    • It is nearly 10 o’clock.
    • It’s 10:45.
    • It’s very cold today.
  8. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent, or with unstated but contextually implied referent, in various short idioms or expressions.
    • rough it
    • live it up
    • stick it out

    1. Referring to a desirable quality or ability, or quality of being successful, fashionable or in vogue.

      • After all these years, she still has it.
      • Later that night, a friend told Brady, “Still got it.” “Never lost it,” he replied. THAT WAS MOSTLY TRUE. But the 2013 season ended with the Patriots coaches wondering whether Brady's skills were in a subtle but...

    2. Referring to sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.

      • I caught them doing it.
      • Are you getting it regularly?
      • Is man really the only animal who does "it" face to face? - 1968, Dear Doctor Hip Pocrates; advice your family doctor never gave you, page 5:
  9. Sex appeal, especially that which goes beyond physical appearance.
    • 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street - 1904, Rudyard Kipling, Mrs Bathurst:
    • And she had It. It, hell; she had Those. - 1927, Dorothy Parker, “Madame Glyn Lectures on 'It,' with Illustrations”, in The New Yorker, published 26 November 1927; republished in Brendan Gill, editor, The Portable...
  10. The impersonal pronoun, used as a placeholder for a delayed subject, or less commonly, object; known as the dummy pronoun (according to some definitions), anticipatory it or, more formally in linguistics, a syntactic expletive. The delayed subject is commonly a to-infinitive, a gerund, or a noun clause introduced by a subordinating conjunction.
    • It’s not worth talking to you.
    • It is easy to see how she would think that.
    • "I know now!" said I. "I have seen this in your face a long while." "No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is to read a face!" - 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House,...
  11. All or the end; something after which there is no more.
    • Are there more students in this class, or is this it?
    • That's it—I'm not going to any more candy stores with you.
  12. Followed by an omitted and understood relative pronoun: That which; what.
    • In briefe, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it [= it which] wee call Happinesse, and this doe I enjoy [...]. - 1643, Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, II.2:

Forms

it itself its his they them hit i' itt 't

Related

he her him I me she thee them they thou us we ye you

Derived

aliensdidit anticipatory it any way one slices it Bumpit buy it damnit do it dummy it evolutiondidit flooddidit for it FSMdidit go at it goddidit goshdangit goshdarnit it is said itness keep it real know-it-all move it preparatory it Satandidit stick-at-itiveness