It

Part of speech: pronoun, noun

Definitions

1. A pronoun standing for a thing, animal or idea already named ; a dummy subject for weather, distance or time ; the player who chases in tag ; informal sex appeal or magnetism
2. Neuter pronoun for a previously named object or creature ; empty placeholder subject in weather or time phrases ; the chaser in a game of tag ; slang for allure or charm
3. Pronoun referring back to a named thing or animal ; filler subject used in expressions about weather or time ; the one who must catch others in tag ; slang for personal appeal

Etymology: The pronoun "it" is one of the oldest English words, and its history is less about borrowing than about a long, shared inheritance. It descends from Proto-Germanic "*it", and Old English "hit" was the neuter form that spread through the language. The dropping of the initial "h" in unstressed use is what gives us the familiar short "it" we use today, a pattern that also explains the variant "t'" found in other dialects. The word is closely related to the third-person pronouns of many languages across northern Europe. Dutch "het", German "es" and the Frisian forms "it" and "et" all grew from the same stem, which explains why the English pronoun looks so similar to its neighbours across the North Sea. Some of these cousins also show the reduced forms that English shares, such as the German "'s" and the Yiddish "es".