ye

ye ¹  (, y)

def.art. Archaic

The.

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[Misreading of ye, from Middle English þe, spelling of the, the (using the letter thorn).]

Usage Note: In an attempt to seem quaint or old-fashioned, many store signs such as "Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe" use spellings that are no longer current. The word ye in such signs looks identical to the archaic second plural pronoun ye, but it is in fact not the same word. Ye in "Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe" is just an older spelling of the definite article the. The y in this ye was never pronounced (y) but was rather the result of improvisation by early printers. In Old English and early Middle English, the sound () was represented by the letter thorn (þ). When printing presses were first set up in England in the 1470s, the type and the typesetters all came from Continental Europe, where this letter was not in use. The letter y was used instead because in the handwriting of the day the thorn was very similar to y. Thus we see such spellings as y^e for the, y^t or y^at for that, and so on well into the 19th century. However, the modern revival of the archaic spelling of the has not been accompanied by a revival of the knowledge of how it was pronounced, with the result that (y) is the usual pronunciation today.

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ye ¹ [yee]

pron

Old-fashioned or dialect you [Old English gē]

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ye ²

Adjective

(definite article) Old-fashioned or jocular the: ye olde Rose and Crown pub [a misinterpretation of the, written with the old letter thorn (þ), representing th]

Translations

ye

pron ye [jiː]

an old word for you, occurring as the subject of a sentence. jy أنتَ остаряла форма на the vy, vás, vám I; Eder du, ihr εσείς (αρχ.) vos teie شما te vous אַת/ה तुम vi,ti te, ti; téged, titeket kau þið voi なんじ 너희들, 그대들?문장의 주어? tu, jûs jūs kau gij dere wy vós voi вы vy, vás, vám vi ti (vi) Ni, I, Eder คำเก่าของ you you'nun eski şekli 你們，汝等 ти, ви you قدیم bạn; các bạn 你们，汝等