i

The word “i” means used by a speaker or writer to refer to themself as the subject of a sentence. In plain terms, the word you use to talk about yourself, and also the ninth letter of the alphabet.

“I” is pronounced uh (/ə/ in IPA).

Here is “i” used in a sentence: “I am going to the store later.”

Words with a similar meaning to “i” include ich, ch, my ass, m'ass, muggins and yours truly.

Depending on how it is used, “i” can be a pronoun, a noun and a numeral.

The word “i” comes from Old English. From Old English "ic," which traces back through Germanic languages to a very old Indo-European word for "I.".

“I” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“I” has 4 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: used by a speaker or writer to refer to themself as the subject of a sentence.

Capitalizing the pronoun "I" is a long-established English spelling convention, and it applies wherever the word appears in a sentence, not just at the beginning. Writing it lowercase ("i") is considered nonstandard outside very casual texting.

Use "you and I" when the pair is the subject of the verb ("You and I should talk") and "you and me" when it is the object ("She invited you and me"). A quick test is to drop "you and": you would say "She invited me", never "She invited I."

"I" is a subject pronoun, used for the person doing the action: "I wrote the email." "Me" is an object pronoun, used for the person receiving it: "The email was sent to me." This is why "between you and me" is correct — prepositions like "between" take object pronouns.

"It is I" follows the traditional formal rule that a pronoun after "be" takes the subject form. In everyday modern English, "It's me" is the natural, universally accepted choice, and "It is I" now sounds stiff outside very formal contexts.