he or she
\hi ɔɹ ʃi\
The verdict
“he or she” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a pronoun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Il ou elle.
Corpus desk
Index FR-he-or-she · he or she · French
he or she · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | he or she |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Pronoun |
| IPA | \hi ɔɹ ʃi\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « he or she » en français
Rare enough to double-check
he or she is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as apronoun, transcribed \hi ɔɹ ʃi\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Il ou elle.".
No misspelling variants are generated for he or she in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is he or she, spelled H-E- -O-R- -S-H-E.
Definition
- 1Il ou elle.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how he or she appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In Skinner the Court stated: It is not disputed, however, that chemical analysis of urine, like that of blood, can reveal a host of private medical facts about an employee, including whether he or she is epileptic, pregnant, or diabetic.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.