everyone

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈev.ri.wʌn/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English everichon,^[2] a compound, from English every + one.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Every person: about 1200.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The compound has been written both as one word and as two.^[4] Although it takes a singular verb, it has long served as the antecedent of a plural pronoun, as in Iris Murdoch's “Everyone has had their adventures”.^[4][5]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – everichon, every person.^[3][2]

Modern meaning

Pronoun

1. Every person; everybody.

Related words

• anyone
• everybody
• everything
• everywhere
• no one
• someone
• every
• one

Usage notes

Collins notes that everyone and everybody are interchangeable, but that everyone must be kept apart from every one, two words, which refers to each member of a group: every one of them.^[6] Longman advises a singular verb (everyone admires her) and all of us rather than everyone of us.^[5]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman
6. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins