Them
/ðɛm/noun
Objective third-person plural pronoun used to refer to people or things previously mentioned or easily identified.
Did you know?Them comes from an Old Norse demonstrative used to mark distant or pointed-out things, and English imported it during the Viking Age, quietly reshaping our pronoun system.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*to-
“a demonstrative base meaning 'that' or 'the'.”
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*þaizō / *þaimaz
“demonstrative forms meaning 'those' or 'to them'.”
Old Norse
ON
þeim
“to them; them (dative plural demonstrative/pronoun form).”
Middle English
English
hem / them
“them; objective plural pronoun, originally alongside native forms.”
Modern English
English
them
“objective third-person plural pronoun.”