them
/ðɛm
/ /ðəm /pronoun [third person plural]
1Used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to two or more people or things previously mentioned or easily identified: I bathed the kids and read them stories rows of doors, most of them locked...Compare with they.
- Many of them feel excluded from a number of opportunities that the rest of us take for granted.
- She was wise enough to realize that most of them were interested only in what they could get out of her.
- How many of you, as kids, read these insane stories and believed them to be true?
1.1Used after the verb ‘to be’ and after ‘than’ or ‘as’: you reckon that’s them? we’re better than them...
- I knew it was them!
- We're better than them.
- Should women be offended when men dress up as them for Halloween?
1.2 [singular] Referring to a person of unspecified sex: how well do you have to know someone before you call them a friend?...
- When you have a child, you have this unconditional love for them.
- Telling someone you love them is not enough; you have to act in such a way to back that up else it simply isn't true.
- When a child has gone out into the world without quite the right tools to deal with it, you love them even more.
2 archaic Themselves: they bethought them of a new expedient
determiner informal or dialect
Those: look at them eyes...
- I feel sorry for them dogs and I hope it never happens to mine!
- He is a man; you can't just blame her, because if he really wanted to he would see them kids no matter how far away they live.
Usage
On the use of them in the singular to mean ‘him or her’, see they (usage).
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse theim 'to those, to them', dative plural of sá; related to their and they.