Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- pro. Used to refer to that one previously mentioned. Used of a nonhuman entity; an animate being whose sex is unspecified, unknown, or irrelevant; a group of objects or individuals; an action; or an abstraction: polished the table until it shone; couldn't find out who it was; opened the meeting by calling it to order.
- pro. Used as the subject of an impersonal verb: It is snowing.
- pro. Used as an anticipatory subject or object: Is it certain that they will win?
- pro. Used as an anticipatory subject to emphasize a term that is not itself a subject: It was on Friday that all the snow fell.
- pro. Used to refer to a general condition or state of affairs: She couldn't stand it.
- pro. Used to refer to a crucial situation or culmination: This is it—the rivals are finally face to face. That's it! I won't tolerate any more foolishness.
- pro. Informal Used to refer to something that is the best, the most desirable, or without equal: He thinks he's it. That steak was really it!
- n. Games A player, as in tag, who attempts to find or catch the other players.
- n. An animal that has been neutered: The cat is an it.
- idiom. with it Slang Aware of or knowledgeable about the latest trends or developments.
- idiom. with it Slang Mentally responsive and perceptive: I'm just not with it today.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- A personal pronoun, of the third person and neuter gender, corresponding to the masculine he and the feminine she, and having the same plural forms, they, their, them. A substitute for the name of an object (previously mentioned, or understood from the context or circumstances) not regarded as possessing sex, or without regard to the sex, or for an abstract noun, a phrase, or a clause: as, it (a stone) is very heavy; feed it (an infant) with a spoon; the moon was red when it rose; the horse stumbles when it (or he) is driven fast; how did it (an event) happen? It is often used vaguely for a thing, notion, or circumstance not definitely conceived, or left to the imagination: as, how far do you call it? plague take it! you'll catch it!
- As the nominative of an impersonal verb or verb used impersonally, when the thing for which it stands is expressed or implied by the verb itself: as, it rains (the rain rains or is falling); it is blowing (the wind is blowing).
- As the grammatical subject of a clause of which the logical subject is a phrase or clause, generally following, and regarded as in apposition with it: as, it is said that he has won the prize; he is poor, it is true, but he is honest; it behooves you to bestir yourself; it is they that have done this mischief.
- After an intransitive verb, used transitively for the kind of action denoted or suggested by the verb: as, to foot it all the way to town.
- The possessive case, originally his (see he), now its; the form it without the possessive suffix having been used for a time in works written during the period of transition from the use of his to that of its.
- In children's games, that player who is called upon to perform some particular task, as in I-spy or tag the one who must catch or touch the other players: as, he's it; who's it? [In old usage the substantive verb after
it often agrees with the succeeding nominative in the first or second person: as, “It am I, fader,” in Chaucer.] - A common abbreviation of Italian.
- A dialectal (Scotch) form of -ed, -ed.
- n. An abbreviation of Italy.
Wiktionary
- abbr. language Italian.
- abbr. Italy.
- pro. The third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, to an inanimate thing with no or unknown sex or gender.
- pro. The third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to an animate entity of unknown gender.
- pro. Used to refer to oneself when identifying oneself, often on the phone, but not limited to this situation.
- pro. The impersonal pronoun, used without referent as the subject of an impersonal verb or statement. (known as the dummy pronoun or weather it)
- pro. The impersonal pronoun, used as a placeholder for a delayed subject, or less commonly, object. (known as the dummy pronoun or, more formally in linguistics, a syntactic expletive)
- pro. obsolete, relative That which; what.
- n. One who is neither a he nor a she; a creature; a dehumanized being.
- n. The person who chases and try to catch the other players in the playground game of tag.
- n. UK, uncountable The game of tag.
- adj. colloquial most fashionable.
GNU Webster's 1913
- pro. The neuter pronoun of the third person, corresponding to the masculine pronoun
he and the feminineshe , and having the same plural (they ,their ortheirs ,them ).
WordNet 3.0
- n. the branch of engineering that deals with the use of computers and telecommunications to retrieve and store and transmit information
Etymologies
- From Middle English, from Old English hit, from Proto-Germanic *hit (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-, *ḱey- (“this, here”). Cognate with West Frisian it ("it"), Low German it ("it"), Dutch het ("it"), German es ("it"). More at he. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English hit. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The knife didn't fit in your hand like any knife though, it fit like the woodworker sanded it to the lines and curves of your own palm.”
“Contrary to the talk [of the law's critics], York declared, it is a reasonable, limited, carefully crafted measure ... that went to great lengths to make sure it is constitutional.”
Forbes: Arizona's Law: Anti-Immigrant And Anti-Constitutional
“The soundtrack in my head is Roy Orbison singing \ "It\'s over, it\'s ooooooover, \" and it doesn\'t matter that the \ "it\" for him was a love affair and not a college app.”
“This concept is popular with investors who want to set it and forget it as well as those who want a more conservative mix in retirement.”
“By taking just an hour to create a similar set it and forget it plan for the rest of your finances, you can set yourself up for a lifetime of financial success while saving yourself from the unnecessary heartaches, stress, and apologies that managing money can otherwise entail.”
“I have my fingers crossed that this series will continue to gain momentum and press as it progresses..it has the potential to become one great big fantastic pun intended epic fantasy.”
“I've tried 321 different review formats over the last 2 3/4 years, and while it helps sometimes..it still doesn't solve the problem.”
“Speaking of epic ,mine was piled so high it stuck out of the water..it stunk like ...”
“Light informed them of the frightening event long before any revealing noise, but the noise didn't just lie down, and instead rumbled its immense way across space, gaining if anything it seemed rather than losing in mass, before finally rolling hugely over the humble world, flattening all other sound and terrifying everything upon it evolved enough to have got as far as experiences like terror.”
“And as soon as they got assimilated into "my stuff", they became the baggage that I literally carry with me from place to place *because I have always had it and therefore it is part of who I am because I have always had it*.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘it’.
-
Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
-
Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
-
EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
about, above, across, after, afterwards, again, against, all, almost, alone, along, already and 291 more...
-
EN - pronunciation fun
All words of the poem
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse <...abyss, ache, actual, advice, aerie, age, ague, aisles, alas, alien, alive, allowed and 406 more...
-
Monty Python words
inquisition, spanish, spam, parrot, silly, walking, yes it is, no it isn't, argument, clinic, ping!, sperm and 49 more...
-
broken
unable, to, complete, request, sorry, something, has, gone, terribly, wrong, When, the and 35 more...
-
core words
my, I, mine, your, his, hers, him, her, their, theirs, our, ours and 34 more...
-
Resident Pipsiculturalist Makes Huge ...
See comments on pipsiculture and homosexuality, which have nothing to do with each other except that I read comments on them at around the same time on the same day.
See also the list ...heterosexuality, homosexuality, agriculture, argumentative, that, article, thus, make, do, the, interesting, like and 106 more...
-
no little thing
it bothers me when i hear someone who have experienced something life changing use the phrase: now i appreciate the little things. I DON'T BELIEVE THERE ARE ANY LITTLE THINGS. everything is EXTRAOR...
letters, living, understand, narrow, behavior, personal, need, meant, untamed, world, soldier, 'cause and 241 more...
-
Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
bootload's Words
grouse, beaut, ripper, gassit, hack, hacking, twit, spon, goon, rosella, magpie, galah and 184 more...
-
eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
-
ttobba's Words
graph, amore, labrador, sun, boreal, norsk, coffee, cafe, pekin, peking, train, rail and 97 more...
-
What Is a Reesetee, Anyhow?
It kinda all started on limpkin...
Reesetee is fighting back on this list.wise man looking ..., someone named reese, old creole bon vi..., monocled raconteur, niche worrier, buckminsterfullerene, short, frail, fro..., loves reese's pea..., wears homespun dhoti, prefers reese's p..., has list dedicate..., commenty and 114 more...
-
fabula's Words
fabulas, pasadizo, laberinto, amazónica, libritos, manzana, ilustración, ilustraciones, trazos, tiralíneas, eufenismo, cinemateca and 217 more...
-
Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for it.

PossibleUnderscore Thanks for that :) Jan 21, 2011
qroqqa Not related to Latin id, despite the apparently obvious connexion via Grimm's Law. The Old English was hit, the [h] being lost in Middle English. This makes it related to he, both from a pre-Germanic *k- root (not as far as I know represented in Latin[1]). The neuter ending -t is however cognate with the -d of Latin id, quid, illud etc.
1. Unless it's the deictic -c(e) of hic, sic. Jan 20, 2011
PossibleUnderscore Possibly from the latin word 'id'? Jan 19, 2011
rolig What Clara Bow was said to have. Sep 9, 2008
kewpid A dynamic, indefinable quality. A certain je ne sais quoi. Sep 8, 2008
yarb Weirdnet offers just the two definitions... Jul 23, 2008
yarb Now bracketed jenn. Jul 23, 2008
jennarenn non compos mentis? Jul 23, 2008
yarb Number 3
(non compos mentis, got eight kids already)
asked me when 'it' would be all right again.
I said 'If you endeavour to avoid
sexual intercourse for about two nights...'
She said 'He won't wait. He will have his rights.'
- Peter Reading, Talking Shop, from C, 1984 Jul 23, 2008