ye

ye¹

pronoun [second person plural] archaic or dialect plural form of thou¹.

Origin

OE gē, of Gmc origin.

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ye²

determiner pseudo-archaic term for the.

Word History

The modern use of ye has arisen from a misunderstanding. In Old English the sound th- was represented by a letter called the thorn, written þ. In medieval times this character came to be written identically with y, so that the could be written ye. This spelling was kept as a convenient abbreviation as late as the 19th century, but it was never pronounced as ‘ye’.