Dictionary

epicene they en · NOUN

Meanings

1. The pronoun they when used to refer to a single individual, regardless of gender.
   • In short, inclusive language is supposedly scientific, its use necessitated by modern English. And so the epicene "they" becomes a neuter workaround, but "mankind" is employed, some allegedly sexist renderings are retained, and God and Satan remain masculine because this is how modern anglophones speak and think. 2011 October 14, Leroy Huizenga, “The Collins Bank Bible by Leroy Huizenga”, in First Things, number 216, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, page 55:
   • We conducted two experiments that, in contrast with prior work, employed implicit methods. We manipulated the type of pronoun in a sentence (i.e., epicene he, epicene they, and unrelated) and type of probe word (masculine or feminine) in order to determine whether he or they is a more effective epicene pronoun, comparably facilitating the processing of both masculine- and feminine-gendered words. 2018 October 14, Jane Noll, Mark Lowry, Judith Bryant, “Changes Over Time in the Comprehension of He and They as Epicene Pronouns”, in Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, volume 47, number 5, Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 1065-1066:
   • Similarly, quantifiers such as somebody, everybody, and nobody seem to influence pronoun selection as the majority of epicene theys refer to quantificational expressions. 2020 December 14, Vilma Karhu, The Use of Epicene Pronouns in EFL settings: A comparative Study between Finnish and Austrian University Students (master's thesis), Tampere University, via Academia.edu, archived from the original on 19 May 2026:
   • [Title:] The Rise of Epicene They 2004 June 14, Mark Balhorn, “The Rise of Epicene They”, in Journal of English Linguistics, volume 32, number 2, Sage Publications, →DOI, →ISSN, page 79:
   • That's because, as amazing as it sometimes seems to austere grammarians, epicene "they" is not universally regarded as wrong. It has a long and respected history (dating back to the 14th century, I believe), and many famous writers have used and defended it. 2001 August 27, Brian Tung <brian@isi.edu>, “Re: OK, Why No Half Moon Phase?”, in sci.astro.amateur (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 19 May 2026:
   • Some researchers have suggested a strong link between the type of antecedent and the chosen alternative of the epicene pronoun. For example, it has been suggested that the majority of epicene theys refer to quanticational expressions such as somebody, everybody, etc. 2002 August 14, Maciej Baranowski, “Current usage of the epicene pronoun in written English”, in Journal of Sociolinguistics, volume 6, number 2, Blackwell Publishers, →DOI, →ISSN, page 383:

Forms