his

CEFRA1

/ɪz/ [ɪ̈z]

determiner

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    determiner

    Belonging to a man or boy already mentioned.

  2. 02

    determiner

    Extra detail

    Belonging to a person of unspecified gender.

Examples

  • I would like to give him a present for his birthday.

  • The student decided to abridge his paper by taking out unnecessary details.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • /əz/
  • /hɪz/

Deep Dive

determiner

Extra meanings

  1. Its; belonging to it. (Now only when implying personification.)

  2. Belonging to him.

  3. Used as a genitive marker in place of ’s after a noun, especially a masculine noun ending in -s, to express the possessive case.

More examples

In context

  • He took my hand in his.

  • This pen is his. These books are also his.

  • Ahab his mark

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The red coat is John's, but the blue one is blank.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

determiner

From Middle English hes, from Old English his (“his; its”), from Proto-Germanic *hes (“of this”), genitive of Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this”). Cognate with Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic hans (“his”). More at he; see also its.