it
pronoun
(used to represent an inanimate thing understood, previously mentioned, about to be mentioned, or present in the immediate context).
Showing results for it.
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it-s.
it
1 American
[it]
/ ɪt /
pronoun
-
they,
plural nominative
-
them,
objective
-
its,
possessive
-
their,
possessive
-
theirs
possessive
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(used to represent an inanimate thing understood, previously mentioned, about to be mentioned, or present in the immediate context).
It has whitewall tires and red upholstery.
You can't tell a book by its cover.
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(used to represent an animal understood, previously mentioned, or about to be mentioned whose sex is unknown or disregarded).
It was the largest shark ever caught off the Florida coast.
The horse had its saddle on.
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(used to represent a person of previously unknown identity, in a sentence seeking, establishing, or commenting on their identity).
"I heard the phone ring—who was it?" "It was John."
Someone got hurt, but they think it was not the driver.
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(used to represent a group understood or previously mentioned).
The judge told the jury it must decide two issues.
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(used to represent a concept or abstract idea understood or previously stated).
It all started with my choice to walk out that door.
He has been taught to believe it all his life.
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(used to represent an action or activity understood, previously mentioned, or about to be mentioned).
Since you don't like it, you don't have to go skiing.
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(used as the impersonal subject of the verb to be, especially to refer to time, distance, or the weather).
It is six o'clock.
It is five miles to town.
It was foggy.
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(used in statements expressing an action, condition, fact, circumstance, or situation without reference to an agent).
If it weren't for Edna, I wouldn't go.
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(used in referring to something as the origin or cause of pain, pleasure, etc.).
Where does it hurt?
It looks bad for the candidate.
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(used in referring to a source not specifically named or described).
It is said that love is blind.
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(used in referring to the general state of affairs, circumstances, fate, or life in general).
How's it going with you?
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(used as an anticipatory subject or object in order to shift emphasis).
It is necessary that you do your duty.
It is I who should apologize.
It was a very kind thing he did there.
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Informal. (used instead of the pronoun its before a gerund).
It having rained for only one hour didn't help the crops.
noun
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(in children's games) the player called upon to perform some task, such as, in tag, the one who must catch the other players.
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Slang.
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sex appeal.
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sexual intercourse.
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idioms
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get with it, to become active or interested.
He was warned to get with it or resign.
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with it,
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aware of the latest fads, fashions, etc.; up-to-date.
By grooving on teenage slang, the principal is trying to show us how with it she is, but the effect is something like seeing a mohawk on Grandma.
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attentive or alert.
I'm just not with it early in the morning.
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understanding or appreciative of something.
Let's face it—when it comes to originality, Hollywood isn't really with it.
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Carnival Slang. being a member of the carnival.
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it is what it is. see it is what it is.
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it's not over till it's over. see it's not over till it's over.
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have it,
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to love someone.
She really has it bad for him.
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to possess the requisite abilities for something; be talented, adept, or proficient.
In this business you either have it or you don't.
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it
2
American
[it]
/ ɪt /
noun
British Informal.
It
3
American
abbreviation
IT
4
American
abbreviation
It.
5
American
abbreviation
-
Italian.
-
Italy.
it
1
British
/ ɪt /
pronoun
-
refers to a nonhuman, animal, plant, or inanimate thing, or sometimes to a small baby
it looks dangerous
give it a bone
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refers to an unspecified or implied antecedent or to a previous or understood clause, phrase, etc
it is impossible
I knew it
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used to represent human life or experience either in totality or in respect of the present situation
how's it going?
I've had it
to brazen it out
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used as a formal subject (or object), referring to a following clause, phrase, or word
it helps to know the truth
I consider it dangerous to go on
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used in the nominative as the formal grammatical subject of impersonal verbs. When it functions absolutely in such sentences, not referring to any previous or following clause or phrase, the context is nearly always a description of the environment or of some physical sensation
it is raining
it hurts
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informal (used as complement with be) the crucial or ultimate point
the steering failed and I thought that was it
noun
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(in children's games) the player whose turn it is to try to touch another Compare he 1
-
informal
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sexual intercourse
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sex appeal
-
-
informal a desirable quality or ability
he's really got it
It.
2
British
abbreviation
-
Italian
-
Italy
IT
3
British
abbreviation
it
4
British
abbreviation
it
More Idioms
Grammar
See me.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of it1
First recorded before 900; Middle English hit, hitte, it, Old English hit, neuter of he 1
Origin of it2
First recorded in 1930–35; It(alian vermouth)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Einstein's theory, meanwhile, treats gravity as a property of space and time itself -- it can bend, flatten, and support waves that travel through it, as gravitational wave detectors have confirmed.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Rather than simply cultivating conventional Spirulina, researchers are changing the conditions under which it grows to encourage production of specific compounds that are useful to humans.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
These include a fundamental question about the potential instability of the Thwaites Glacier due to the interaction of the ocean, ice and solid ground near where it meets the sea.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Low-dose ASA was included because it can enhance the production of these inflammation-resolving molecules.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Carville would eventually become a world leader in the treatment of Hansen’s disease, but you wouldn’t have guessed it during those early years.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
It might seem that adding dimensions would make an already difficult problem even more complicated.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
It was startling at the time to hear those chants.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
It is part of a chain of interconnected Premier League deals before Tuesday's transfer deadline.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
It contrasted the clip with one of a young female athlete in a saffron tunic—a color associated with Hinduism—receiving an award from the country’s president.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
It could appear out of nowhere and last a few seconds or a few minutes.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
Instead, it is woven into multiple lines across the IT budget.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Sami is an IT manager, chauffeur and ticket reseller in addition to his social-media-influencer aspirations, which seem to be built around his proximity to famous faces.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026
Telling a colleague that the software was too anonymous and complex for me, he suggested that I “pay an IT guy to do it.”
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
Denise Rowley, 71, previously taught IT among other subjects to older people at a college in Leeds.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
What have I got that IT hasn’t got? she thought suddenly.
From "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
When the apartment finally went quiet, I opened my Notes app and typed: “You. Can. Have. It. All.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
Its "See It. Say It. Sorted." campaign was launched in 2016 and then relaunched last year, encouraging the public to report "anything unusual", either to station staff or to British Transport Police.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025
“Let. It. Go,” wrote The Sentinel on April 2 in an editorial, referring to the popular song from the Disney movie “Frozen.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2023
Municipalities are working to this end, with programs such as New York City’s $2 million “Trash It. Don’t Flush It” public awareness campaign.
From Salon ● Dec. 26, 2019
"I don't know how you can even look at It. You don't even flinch."
From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin
The researchers then continued testing different conditions until they identified a "sweet spot" involving temperature and ammonia pressure.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
"Museum collections are far more than archives of the past - they are essential scientific resources for understanding biodiversity today," said Dr. Alice Petzold of the University of Potsdam, who led the museomics work.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
"Many species spend most of their lives beneath the leaf litter, and even when they emerge they can look deceptively similar," he added.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Once inside the body, they search for cells carrying CD19 and attack them.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
But they wouldn’t be going by bus, train, or boat.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Once inside the body, they search for cells carrying CD19 and attack them.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Here's how I rated the players, and how you rated them.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
“They know how to build them pretty good now,” Smith, a professor at the College for Creative Studies transportation design program, said of carmakers today.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
Adulthood also crept up on millennials themselves, and the end of their era of cultural dominance caught them completely by surprise.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
One day, she gathers a basket of fruit and decides to hide a message inside one of them.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
The species shared its world with early members of the genus Homo but followed a very different evolutionary path.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Roman then opened its array of solar panels and sunshades, which power the craft and keep its sensitive instruments cool.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
Warner Bros.’ probable apprehension over how the film depicts corporations like its own is only one layer of this big, genetically modified cartoon onion.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
The telescope is named after physicist Nancy Grace Roman, who was Nasa's first chief astronomer in the 1960s and its first female executive.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
Gravediggers work overtime as January reaches its end.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Those patterns closely match the movements required to use the weapons placed in their graves.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
The sisters shared rare abnormalities in their spines as well.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
"Diamond frogs have been hiding their diversity beneath our feet," said Dr. Mark D. Scherz, Curator of Herpetology at the Natural History Museum Denmark and lead author of the study.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
Despite their enormous success, the two theories still do not fit neatly together.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
As the Japanese tightened their grip on the Philippines, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to leave the Philippines and relocate to Australia so General MacArthur could regroup, strategize, and return, ready to fight.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Perhaps to their point, you aren’t burdened by your own children — don’t allow yourself to be burdened by theirs.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
“My whole thing is: When you use generative AI to come up with ideas, people forget what ideas were theirs and what ideas were the computer’s,” he says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Bare and Huddleston, two self-described “country hicks,” have become polarizing heroes of the rural campaign against the AI technology rewiring geopolitics, the economy—and now hometowns like theirs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
The bakery said: "Every shop that reopens means jobs restored, a unit back in use and footfall returning to the high street, which we believe serves everyone's interests: ours, theirs and the wider local economy's."
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
But at the house, my bedroom was at the opposite end of the hallway from theirs.
From "A Soft Place to Land" by Janae Marks
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
