her
UK[həː]US[hər]
pron
Used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to a female person or animal previously mentioned or easily identified.
pron
Used to refer to a ship, country, or other inanimate thing regarded as female.
Etymology
The word 'her' originates from the Old English dative and accusative feminine singular forms 'hire' and 'hīe', respectively. It is part of the core Germanic pronoun system, descending from the Proto-Germanic feminine accusative form hijō. This, in turn, can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European demonstrative stem ḱe-, which also gave rise to the masculine 'he' and the neuter 'it'. Over centuries, the Old English forms collapsed into the single, simpler modern form 'her', which functions primarily as the objective case of the pronoun 'she', solidifying its role in the English pronominal paradigm.
Analysis
N/A
Examples
I gave her the book.
They were looking for her everywhere.
The ship has lost her rudder in the storm.