American Dictionary of the English Language

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He


HE, pronoun of the third person; nom. he; poss.his; obj. him. [Latin id, for hid; hic.]

1. A pronoun, a substitute for the third person, masculine gender, representing the man or male person named before.

Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16.

Thou shalt fear Jehovah thy God; him shalt thou serve. Deuteronomy 10:4.

2. It often has reference to a person that is named in the subsequent part of the sentence. he is the man.

3. he is often used without reference to any particular person, and may be referred to any person indefinitely that answers the description. It is then synonymous with any man.

HE that walketh with wise men, shall be wise. Proverbs 13:3.

4. he when a substitute for man in its general sense, expressing mankind, is of common gender, representing, like its antecedent, the whole human race.

My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh. Genesis 6:3.

5. Man; a male.

I stand to answer thee, or any he the proudest of thy sort.

In this use of he in the ludicrous style, the word has no variation of case. In the foregoing sentence, he is in the objective case, or position, and the word is to be considered as a noun.

6. he is sometimes prefixed to the names of animals to designate the male kind, as a he-goat, a he-bear. In such cases, he is to be considered as an adjective, or the two words as forming a compound.