DictionaryAI

ye

YEE/jiː/

4 meanings of ye

Practice

  1. 1
    you allpronounarchaic
    You; in older English the usual plural form ('O ye of little faith'), sometimes used to one person, and still used for more than one person in some dialects, such as Irish English.

    Would ye ever keep the noise down, lads? The baby's only just gone to sleep.

    Queſtion me then no more; whate'er ye want, / Ask in my Name, and God ſhall ſurely grant. / You've asked nothing yet for Jesus sake : / Ask and receive, and of my joyes partake.
    1671, Elisha Coles, ΧΡΙΣΤΟΛΟΓΙΑ

    UsageO ye of little faith is often said jokingly to someone who doubts you.

    Note

    Old English ġē was the subject form for a group of listeners, and in Ireland, Newfoundland, Cornwall, the Ottawa Valley and Northern England ye still does that job, marking the plural that standard you leaves blank: are ye coming? asks the whole group. Elsewhere it sounds archaic, kept alive in set formulas such as Know Ye that, which still opened a Hong Kong Government Gazette notice in the 1990s.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Old English ġē was the second-person plural subject pronoun. en.wiktionary.org
    • The opening formula Know Ye that appeared in a Hong Kong Government Gazette notice during the 1990s. en.wiktionary.org
  2. 2
    the (old spelling)articlearchaicdefinite
    An old printed spelling of the definite article the.

    The title page of the pamphlet promises 'A True Account of ye Late Storm.'

    Now vnto yͤ king eternal, immortall, inuiſible, the onely wiſe God, be honour and glory for euer ⁊ euer. Amen.
    1611, The Holy Bible, King James Version

    UsageToday mostly in mock-old names: Ye Olde Fox and Hounds.

    Note

    This is the word the in disguise: early printers of the late 15th century had no thorn (þ) in their type, so they set þe with the y it resembled in blackletter hand. Printers meant it to be read as the, though today most people say it as yee in names like Ye Olde Fox and Hounds. The King James Bible of 1611 still prints yͤ king eternal, and mock-old shop names such as Ye Olde Medicine Shoppe keep the spelling purely as decoration.

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • Late-15th-century printers lacking thorn substituted y because the letters resembled each other in blackletter writing, producing ye for the. en.wiktionary.org
    • The historical article ye was intended to be pronounced as the. en.wikipedia.org
    • The King James Bible was published in 1611. archive.org
    • The 1611 King James Bible prints yͤ king eternal in 1 Timothy 1:17. en.wiktionary.org
  3. 3
    agreeinginterjectionslang
    Used to say yes, as a clipped form of yes or yeah.

    “You still up for the gym tomorrow?” “Ye, six sharp.”

    Ye, that show was way better than I expected, honestly.

    UsageStands alone or opens a reply, with a comma: Ye, six sharp.

    Similaryeah, yep, yup

    Oppositenah, no

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    noun
    In the Cyrillic alphabet, the letter Е, е, which appears in a number of Slavic and Turkic languages.

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Origins

Meaning 1

From Middle English ye, ȝe, from Old English ġē, the nominative form of the second-person plural pronoun. It goes back through Proto-West Germanic *jiʀ and Proto-Germanic *jīz (a North-West variant of *jūz) to Proto-Indo-European *yúHs, the plural of *túh₂. It is cognate with Scots ye, Dutch gij, Low German ji, German ihr, Danish and Swedish I, Icelandic ér, Latvian jūs, and Sanskrit yūyám.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

  • English ye descends through Middle English ye and ȝe from Old English ġē. en.wiktionary.org
  • Old English ġē is the nominative second-person plural pronoun. en.wiktionary.org
  • The reconstructed ancestry includes Proto-West Germanic *jiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *jīz, the Northwest Germanic form of *jūz. en.wiktionary.org
  • Proto-Germanic *jūz descends from Proto-Indo-European *yúHs, the plural counterpart of *túh₂. en.wiktionary.org
  • The listed Scots, Dutch, Low German, German, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Latvian and Sanskrit forms are cognates of ye. en.wiktionary.org
Meaning 2

The word is really Middle English þe. Early printers in the late 1400s had no type for the letter thorn (þ), so they set y in its place because the two looked alike in blackletter handwriting, and the short form yͤ stayed in use long after th had taken over from þ in other words. Handwritten texts kept writing "ye" for "þe" into the 1700s. In 19th-century Britain the spelling was deliberately brought back in shop names to give an old-time feel, which is where names like "Ye Olde … Shoppe" come from.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

Meaning 3

A shortened form of yes or yeah.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact