yours
English
Etymology
From Middle English youres, ȝoures, attested since the 1300s. Equivalent to your + -s (compare -'s); formed by analogy to his. Displaced yourn in standard speech.[1]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /jɔː(ɹ)z/
- Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)z
- (US) enPR: yôrz, IPA(key): /jɔːɹz/, /jɚz/, /jɝːz/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)z
- Homophone: yaws (in some non-rhotic accents)
Pronoun
yours
- That which belongs to you (singular); the possessive second-person singular pronoun used without a following noun.
- If this edit is mine, the other must be yours. Their encyclopedia is good, but yours is even better. It’s all yours.
- That which belongs to you (plural); the possessive second-person plural pronoun used without a following noun.
- 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:
- “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. […]”
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- Written at the end of a letter, before the signature.
Usage notes
- In British English the adverb almost invariably follows the word yours at the end of a letter; in most dialects of American English it usually precedes it. As a general rule, sincerely is only employed if the name of the recipient is already known to the writer; a letter begun with Dear Sir or Dear Madam finishes with faithfully. Yours on its own and yours ever are less formal than the other forms.
Derived terms
Translations
possessive pronoun, singular
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possessive pronoun, plural
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sincerely
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See also
English personal pronouns
| personal pronoun | possessive pronoun | possessive determiner | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| subjective | objective | reflexive | |||||
| first person | singular | I | me | myself | mine | my mine (before vowels, archaic) | |
| plural | we | us | ourselves ourself | ours | our | ||
| second person | singular | standard | you | you | yourself | yours yourn (obsolete outside dialects) | your |
| archaic, informal | thou | thee | thyself theeself | thine | thy thine (before vowels) | ||
| plural | standard | you you all ye (archaic) | you you all | yourselves | yours yourn (obsolete outside dialects) | your | |
| informal / dialectal | (see list of dialectal forms at you and inflected forms in those entries) | ||||||
| third person | singular | masculine | he | him | himself hisself (archaic) | his hisn (obsolete outside dialects) | his |
| feminine | she | her | herself | hers hern (obsolete outside dialects) | her | ||
| neuter | it | it | itself | its his (archaic) | its his (archaic) | ||
| genderless | they | them | themself, themselves | theirs | their | ||
| genderless, nonspecific (formal) |
one | one | oneself | – | one's | ||
| plural | they | them | themselves | theirs theirn (obsolete outside dialects) | their | ||
Middle English
References
- “youres, (pron.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 21 May 2018.
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