it

pron

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.”

   “It is not a pen. It is a book.”

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.”

   “The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried its hardest to turn off but hasn't quite managed.”

3. (rare)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 supported, till death them do part.”

   “She had never seen that each human being was different, would react differently, had its own peculiar idiosyncrasies.”

4. (obsolete)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.”

   “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 the twinkle in your big black eyes; and I like you in spite of your trying to be horrid. Do you know, I liked you from the first moment I saw you.””

   “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!”

5. (derogatory, offensive)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. Gave her $3, walked her to a bar. […] Some teenage boys watched us walking & began shouting. When I left her at the bar door & kissed her goodbye, they began shouting "Ugh! You kissed it!!"”

   “"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.”

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.”

   “It’s lonely without you.”

   “It seems so.”

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”

9. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent, or with unstated but contextually implied referent, in various short idioms or expressions.

   “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 irrevocable decline […]”

10. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent, or with unstated but contextually implied referent, in various short idioms or expressions.

    “I caught them doing it.”

    “Are you getting it regularly?”

    “Is man really the only animal who does "it" face to face?”

11. (uncountable)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”

    “And she had It. It, hell; she had Those.”

12. 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!"”

    “It was felt that I'd be the right man for the job.”

    “I find it odd that you would say that.”

13. 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.”

14. (obsolete)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 [...].”

det

1. (obsolete)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.”

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 automatic machine—a thing incapable of feeling.…"”

   “Too often, children become an "it" in their homes and their humanness is devalued.”

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 hiders.”

   “When there are only two children left who haven't been tagged, I will stop the game, and we will start over with those children starting as the Its.”

3. (British)A game of tag.

   “Let's play it at breaktime.”

4. (informal)A desirable characteristic, as being fashionable.

   “Man, he's really got it.”

   “She's the it girl, at least for this Fall.”

5. (informal)Something desirable or suitable.

   “Bro, that shirt is not it.”

6. (informal)Sexual intercourse.

   “OMG, they were doing it in the storage room.”

7. (informal)Sex appeal.

   “She really has it going on.”

8. (alt-of)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 […]”

9. (alt-of)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 between […]”

10. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of information technology.

    “Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again? Ok. Well, are you sure that it's plugged in?”

    “Sources tell WIRED that Bobba, Coristine, Farritor, and Shaotran all currently have working GSA emails and A-suite level clearance at the GSA, which means that they work out of the agency’s top floor and have access to all physical spaces and IT systems, according a source with knowledge of the GSA’s clearance protocols.”

11. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of inclusive tour.
12. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of intercept-time method.
13. (uncountable)A biological force that inhabits living beings, according to the vitalist approach of Georg Groddeck.

    “Georg Groddeck believed in man's innate urge to symbolize. […] kind of defenses that interfere with the free creation of the It. But it would be wrong to call Groddeck an artist (which he was) as opposed to a clinical observer […]”

    “[…] between the Tao and Georg Groddeck's "It", in Durrell's view, compare for example Lawrence Durrell, "Studies in Genius: IV — Georg Groddeck," Horizon 17.102 (1948) : 392. And what of the It? Groddeck does not claim that […]”

    “I wanted to better understand the concept of the It in Georg Groddeck's Book of the It (1923). Groddeck never clearly defined the It, but it was virtually synonymous with the forces of the id. In fact Freud (1923) derived the word Id from It.”

14. (uncountable)The Id, in Freudian psychology.

    “I believe that Freud was mistaken when he made the It into an agency without accounting for how the unconscious portion of the I performs the executive functions of object choice for the drives and competing unconscious material […]”

15. (alt-of, uncountable)Alternative letter-case form of it (“desirable quality; quality of being successful, fashionable, in vogue”).

    “After selling more than three million copies worldwide of their self- titled 2004 debut, and becoming the new It band, Franz Ferdinand lent songs to both commercials (including "Take Me Out" for Sony's PSP) and art-house porn ...”

    “[…] when I remember I can't admit that Bo and Brandon are my boyfriends. One Bellini brother would be okay. Two, apparently, makes me a little too PG-13 for the tweenies. The Bellini Brothers are the new It boy band, ...”

    “People will often tell you that you shouldn't buy this season's It bag, dress, or whatever a celebrity has recently been photographed wearing because (a) you will be deemed to be a fashion victim, (b) everyone else will have it ...”

    “This may seem an odd choice for the former It Girl (and the mother of the new It Boy), but […]”

    “Since, as rock critic Georgia Christgau said at the 2008 EMP Pop Conference, “[Willis] cared less about rock than she did about movements,” covering the new It band was just not that important to her. As her daughter, I have received an ...”

adj

1. (colloquial, not-comparable)Most fashionable, popular, or in vogue.

   “Going away for the weekend and feel the need to profile en route? This is the "it" bag.”

   “With Hit Girl, Moretz is this year's It Girl, alternately sweet, savage and scary.”

   “These Italian made sneakers quickly became an it shoe and the trend is not going anywhere any time soon!”

   “(Our culture's “it”-novelist, Sally Rooney, is instead tellingly God-obsessed.)”

2. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, not-comparable)Initialism of intrathecal.

name

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of It.: abbreviation of Italy.
2. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of It.: abbreviation of Italian (language).