# us

Pronunciation: say "US" /ʌs/

## Pronoun

1. Used by a speaker or writer to refer to themselves and one or more others, with or without the listener; used as the object of a verb or preposition, after be, or alone.
   - Simple: Me and one or more other people, used after a verb or preposition or after 'be': 'Tell us,' 'It's us.'
   - _You can't keep treating us like children, Mr. Hale._
   - _When you visit next month, you're welcome to stay with us._
3. Used to refer to any entity the speaker is part of or identifies with, such as a workplace, school, nation, region or language.
   - Simple: Used to mean something I belong to or feel part of, like my school, company, team or country.
   - _People in the capital tend to forget about us out here in the north._
   - _Three rival firms tried to buy us last year, but the board turned them all down._
4. Used to refer to people in general rather than to any particular group.
   - Simple: Used to talk about people in general, not one special group.
   - _Sleep deprivation slows us down in ways that are hard to notice._
   - _Nothing humbles us quite like a serious illness._
5. Used to draw a group of listeners into the speaker’s experiences or activities by suggesting that they share in them. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Used by someone talking to a group to make the listeners feel part of what the speaker is doing.
   - _Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm going to build us a simple bookshelf from scrap wood._
   - _Alright, chat, let me just grab us a health potion before the boss fight._
6. Me, used especially after verbs such as give, get, lend and fetch. In Northumbrian dialect it can stand for me in any position. *(colloquial, Commonwealth)*
   - Simple: An informal way of saying 'me', especially in requests like 'Give us a hand.'
   - _Give us a hand with these boxes, would you, mate? They weigh a ton._
   - _Fetch us a towel from the cupboard, love, because I've got shampoo in my eyes._
8. Used to refer to the person or people being spoken to, not to the speaker. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Used to mean you, the person or people being spoken to.
   - _All right, Mrs. Patel, time to get us sitting up so the doctor can listen to your chest._
   - _Look at the state of you! Let me get us cleaned up before Grandma sees._

## Proper noun · US

Pronunciation: say "yoo-ES" US /ˌju ˈɛs/, UK /ˌjuː ˈɛs/

2. Short for the United States: the United States of America, a country in North America. — Initialism of the United States: a country in North America.
   - Simple: Short for the United States, a country in North America. People usually say the US.
   - _The company plans to open its first store in the US next spring._
   - _She works as a translator for a US law firm in Toronto._

## Determiner

7. Used before a plural noun naming a group to show that the speaker belongs to it. Standard after a verb or preposition; as the subject in place of we, it is nonstandard.
   - Simple: Used before a word for a group to show the speaker is part of it: 'us nurses', 'us fans'.
   - _The new policy makes life harder for us nurses on the night shift._
   - _Management rarely consults us engineers before changing the schedule._
9. Used before a noun in place of our, to show that something belongs to or is connected with the speaker and others. *(dialectal, Northern England)*
   - Simple: Used to mean our, as in us house or us dog.
   - _Me mam's been walking us dog all week._
   - _The fridge packed in, so all us food's gone off._

## Noun · Us

Pronunciation: say "YOOZ" US /juz/, UK /juːz/

10. Plural of U. — plural of U
   - Simple: Plural of U. Use it when talking about more than one U.
   - _The tables were arranged in two Us facing each other._
   - _In the old inscription, the Vs and Us are carved exactly alike._

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3–9** — Proto-Indo-European *n̥smé ("us"), altered to *n̥swé, gave Proto-Germanic *uns, then Proto-West Germanic *uns and Old English ūs, a dative personal pronoun meaning "us." Middle English kept it as us, but the long vowel shortened there because the word was usually unstressed. Its relatives include West Frisian ús, Dutch ons, German uns, Danish os and Latin nōs ("we, us").
**Meaning 2** — An abbreviation of United States.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/us (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).