A pronoun is a word that you use to refer to someone or something when you do not need to use a noun, often because the person or thing has been mentioned earlier. Examples are 'it', 'she', 'something', and 'myself'.
2. See also indefinite pronoun, personal pronoun, reflexive pronoun, relative pronoun
English Easy Learning GrammarPronounsA pronoun is a word that is used in the place of a noun or a whole noun phrase. Pronouns are commonly used: in place of a noun or a noun phrase that has ... Read more
English Easy Learning GrammarAdverbs and adverbialsWhen you want to add information about how, when, where, or to what extent somethinghas happened, you can use an adverbial. Many adverbials are members ... Read more
English Easy Learning GrammarIndefinite pronounsThe indefinite pronouns are used when you do not know or do not need to say preciselywho or what you are referring to. The noun phrase which they substitute ... Read more
pronoun in British English
(ˈprəʊˌnaʊn)
noun
one of a class of words that serves to replace a noun phrase that has already been or is about to be mentioned in the sentence or context
Abbreviation: pron
Word origin
C16: from Latin prōnōmen, from pro-1 + nōmen noun
pronoun in American English
(ˈproʊˌnaʊn)
noun
Grammar
any of a small class of relationship or signal words that assume the functions of nouns within clauses or phrases while referring to other locutions within the sentence or in other sentences:I, you, them, it, ours, who, which, myself, anybody, etc. are pronouns
Word origin
altered (infl. by noun) < MFr pronom < L pronomen < pro, for + nomen, noun
Examples of 'pronoun' in a sentence
pronoun
The relative pronoun here is the subject of the relative clause.
Times, Sunday Times (2017)
Another example of a disputed usage is whether it's permissible to use they as a singular pronoun.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
How can you tell which is the right case to use for a pronoun?
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
This happens when the wrong noun or pronoun begins the main clause.
Times, Sunday Times (2012)
Some languages have a generic personal pronoun.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
How do you tell whether the relative pronoun is the subject or the object?
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
The pronoun needs to be in the object case.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
To whom does the pronoun they refer?
Marius, Richard A Short Guide to Writing About History (1995)
But to use a plural pronoun as a generic singular is too high a price.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
The alternative is to rewrite the sentence to provide the necessary noun or pronoun.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
Does it matter that the generic and the masculine personal pronouns are spelt and pronounced alike?
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
So must a pronoun and the noun that it refers to.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
An adjective must have a noun or a pronoun to qualify.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
The case of the relative pronoun is then determined by the role that it plays in the relative clause.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
Five personal pronouns take different cases according to whether they are the subject or the object of the verb.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
Everybody is a singular pronoun and requires a singular possessive pronoun: his or her.
Bachmann, Susan (editor) & Barth, Melinda Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook (1995)
Being pop music, the first and second person pronouns are heavily favoured.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
The correct relative pronoun to refer to them is therefore who, not whom.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
Relative pronouns are simple, so why do we get them wrong?
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
A similar misunderstanding would occur if the writer opted for her as the singular possessive pronoun.
Bachmann, Susan (editor) & Barth, Melinda Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric and Handbook (1995)
A test is to see how the clause would read if you used a personal pronoun instead.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
Church is the only place in our culture where we still use male pronouns when we're referring to both genders.
Christianity Today (2000)
But part of the problem may lie in grammar, because there is no third person singular pronoun that does not refer to gender.
Times, Sunday Times (2015)
The subject case of the pronoun is needed when it is the subject of a verb, but isnot automatically and always the right choice.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
The chief executive's use of first-person singular pronouns.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
That distinction doesn't exist with the personal pronoun you, which is both singular and plural.
Times, Sunday Times (2015)
In other languages
pronoun
British English: pronoun /ˈprəʊˌnaʊn/ NOUN
A pronoun is a word which is used instead of a noun group to refer to someone or something. `He', `she', `them', and `something' are pronouns.
American English: pronoun
Arabic: ضَمِير
Brazilian Portuguese: pronome
Chinese: 代词
Croatian: zamjenica
Czech: zájmeno
Danish: pronomen
Dutch: voornaamwoord
European Spanish: pronombre
Finnish: pronomini
French: pronom
German: Pronomen
Greek: αντωνυμία
Italian: pronome
Japanese: 代名詞
Korean: 대명사
Norwegian: pronomen
Polish: zaimek
European Portuguese: pronome
Romanian: pronume
Russian: местоимение
Latin American Spanish: pronombre
Swedish: pronomen
Thai: สรรพนาม
Turkish: zamir
Ukrainian: займенник
Vietnamese: đại từ
All related terms of 'pronoun'
subject pronoun
a pronoun which takes the place of a subject in a sentence , such as (in English) 'I', 'you', or 'we'
indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun such as 'someone', 'anything', or 'nobody', which you use to refer in a general way to a person or thing.
personal pronoun
A personal pronoun is a pronoun such as 'I', 'you', 'she', or 'they' which is used to refer to the speaker or the person spoken to, or to a person or thing whose identity is clear , usually because they have already been mentioned .
possessive pronoun
A possessive pronoun is a pronoun such as 'mine', 'yours', or 'theirs' which is used to refer to the thing of a particular kind that belongs to someone, as in ' Can I borrow your pen ? I've lost mine.'
reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun such as 'myself' which refers back to the subject of a sentence or clause. For example , in the sentence 'She made herself a cup of tea ', the reflexive pronoun 'herself' refers back to 'she'.
relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a word such as 'who', 'that', or 'which' that is used to introduce a relative clause. 'Whose', 'when', 'where', and 'why' are generally called relative pronouns , though they are actually adverbs.
resumptive pronoun
a pronoun that appears in a sentence at a position from which something has been copied or moved by a transformational rule , as found in languages such as Irish , Welsh , Hebrew , and Arabic and in some nonstandard varieties of English, as him in (nonstandard) the man that I gave the book to him
disjunctive pronoun
an inflection of pronouns in some languages that is used alone or after a preposition , such as moi in French