she
/ʃi/pronoun, noun, verb, determiner
she is spelled S-H-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 1,820 times per million words in written English, the 66th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a pronoun, she means “The female (typically) person or animal previously mentioned or implied” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in she?
| Letters | 3: S-H-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1,820 times per million words; the 66th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is she?
She appears 1,820 times per million words in written English, the 66th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce she?
- UK /ʃiː/
- US /ʃi/
- /ʃə/
She has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-she.ogg, En-us-she.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with she
Sounds like: sidhe (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: she or he, shoo.
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with she?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as she from its last stressed vowel (/i/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: hes, hse, seh, ehs.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of she
- her
- hers
- herself
- shoo
- hoo
- shee
- shes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does she mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
pronoun
- 1
feminineThe female (typically) person or animal previously mentioned or implied.
I asked Mary, but she said that she didn't know.
- 2
feminineA ship or boat.
She could do forty knots in good weather.
- 3
datedfeminineA country, or sometimes a city, province, planet, etc.
She is a poor place, but has beautiful scenery and friendly people.
- 4
datedfeminineA thing, especially a machine or other object, such as a car, a computer, or (poetically) a season.
She only gets thirty miles to the gallon on the highway, but she’s durable.
- 5
femininenonstandardA person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (used in a work, along with or in place of he, as an indefinite pronoun).
- 6
feminineThe Catholic Church.
noun
- 1
A female.
Pat is definitely a she.
verb
- 1
To refer to (someone) using she/her pronouns.
determiner
- 1
Synonym of her.
noun
- 1
Initialism of standard hydrogen electrode.
- 2
Initialism of superheavy element.
- 3
Initialism of safety, health, environment.
- 4
Initialism of selective harmonic elimination.
pronoun
- 1
Honorific alternative letter-case form of she, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context.
noun
- 1
An ethnic group in southern China.
- 2
A language of the Hmong-Mien language family spoken by very few She people.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
She in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does she come from?
Inherited from Middle English sche, scho, hyo, ȝho (“she”), whence also Yorkshire dialectal shoo (“she”), Scots she, sho (“she”). Probably from Old English hēo (whence dialectal English hoo), with an irregular change in stress from hēo to heō /hjoː/, then a development from /hj-/ to /ç/ to /ʃ-/, similar to the derivation of Shetland from Old Norse Hjaltland.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).