From Middle Englishus, from Old Englishūs(“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-Germanic*uns(“us”), from Proto-Indo-European*ne-, *nō-, *n-ge-, *n̥smé(“us”). Cognate with Saterland Frisianuus(“us”), West Frisianus, ús(“us”), Low Germanus(“us”), Dutchons(“us”), Germanuns(“us”), Danishos(“us”), Latinnōs(“we, us”).
(personal) Me and at least one other person; the objective case of we.
1611, King James Version of the Bible, Luke 1:1:
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
(Commonwealth of Nations, colloquial, chiefly with give) Me.
Give us a look at your paper.
Give us your wallet!
She's turned the weans against us!
(Northern England) Our.
We'll have to throw us food out.
Alternative forms
-'s(contracted form, as in let's)
Translations
See also
we
our
ours
Determiner
us
The speakers/writers, or the speaker/writer and at least one other person.
It's not good enough for us teachers.
See also
we
Etymology 2
Derived from the similarity between the letter u and the Greek letter µ.
Symbol
us
Alternative spelling of µs: microsecond
2002, Peter Spasov, Microcontroller Technology, the 68HC11, p. 489:
;wait 500 us
2012, Peter Feiler and David Gluch, Model-Based Engineering with AADL:
The standard units are ns (nanoseconds), us (microseconds), ms (milliseconds), sec (seconds), min (minutes), and hr (hours).
2014, Michael Corey, Jeff Szastak, and Michael Webster, Virtualizing SQL Server with VMware: Doing IT Right, p. 198:
Because the flash devices are local to the server, the latencies can be microseconds (us) instead of milliseconds (ms) and eliminate some traffic that would normally have gone over the storage network.
Etymology 3
Noun
us
plural of u
Usage notes
There is some difference of opinion regarding the use of apostrophes in the pluralization of references to letters as symbols. New Fowler's Modern English Usage, after noting that the usage has changed, states on page 602 that "after letters an apostrophe is obligatory." The 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style states in paragraph 7.16, "To avoid confusion, lowercase letters ... form the plural with an apostrophe and an s". The Oxford Style Manual on page 116 advocates the use of common sense.
Anagrams
SU, Su
Catalan
Etymology
From Old Occitanus, from Latinūsus.
Pronunciation
(Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA(key): /ˈus/
Homophone: ús
Pronoun
us (proclitic and contracted enclitic, encliticvos)
you (plural, direct or indirect object)
Contraction of vos.
Usage notes
us is the reinforced (reforçada) form of the pronoun. It is used before verbs.
-us is the reduced (reduïda) form of the pronoun. It is used after verbs ending with vowel.
Declension
Further reading
“us” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
“us” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
“us” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
French
Etymology
From Old Frenchus, from Latinūsus.
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /ys/
Rhymes: -ys
Noun
usm pl (plural only)
(plural only) mores; traditional practices or manners
Usage notes
Only used in Modern French as us et coutumes(“mores and customs”). Also see the etymologically related usage.
Further reading
“us” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Anagrams
su
Gothic
Romanization
us
Romanization of 𐌿𐍃
Middle English
Alternative forms
ous, os, hus, usse, hous
Etymology
From Old Englishūs(“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-Germanic*uns(“us”), from Proto-Indo-European*ne-, *nō-, *n-ge-, *n-sme-(“us”).
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /us/, /uːs/
Pronoun
us (nominativewe)
First-person plural accusative pronoun: us.
(reflexive) ourselves.
(reciprocal) each other.
Synonyms
we
Descendants
English: us
Scots: us, hus
Yola: ouse
See also
References
“ū̆s, pron.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Middle Low German
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /ʊs/, /uːs/
Pronoun
ûsorus
(personal pronoun, dative, accusative)Alternative form of uns.
(possesive pronoun)Alternative form of uns.
Declension
Possesive pronoun:
Norman
Etymology
From Old Frenchuis, from Latinostium.
Noun
usm (pluralus)
door
Old English
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic*uns, from Proto-Indo-European*n̥s, *nes. Cognates include Old Frisianūs (West Frisianús), Old Saxonūs (Low Germanos, ons), Dutchons, Old High Germanuns (Germanuns), Old Norseoss (Swedishoss), Gothic𐌿𐌽𐍃(uns). The Indo-European root is also the source of Latinnos.