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[its] /ɪts/

pronoun
1.
the possessive form of 1. (used as an attributive adjective):
The book has lost its jacket. I’m sorry about its being so late.
[it] /ɪt/
pronoun, nominative it, possessive its or (Obsolete or Dialect) it, objective it; plural nominative they, possessive their or theirs, objective them.
1.
(used to represent an inanimate thing understood, previously mentioned, about to be mentioned, or present in the immediate context):
It has whitewall tires and red upholstery. You can’t tell a book by its cover.
2.
(used to represent a person or animal understood, previously mentioned, or about to be mentioned whose gender is unknown or disregarded):
It was the largest ever caught off the Florida coast. Who was it? It was John. The horse had its saddle on.
3.
(used to represent a group understood or previously mentioned):
The judge told the jury it must decide two issues.
4.
(used to represent a concept or abstract idea understood or previously stated):
It all started with Adam and Eve. He has been taught to believe it all his life.
5.
(used to represent an action or activity understood, previously mentioned, or about to be mentioned):
Since you don’t like it, you don’t have to go skiing.
6.
(used as the impersonal subject of the verb to be, especially to refer to time, distance, or the weather):
It is six o’clock. It is five miles to town. It was foggy.
7.
(used in statements expressing an action, condition, fact, circumstance, or situation without reference to an agent):
If it weren’t for Edna, I wouldn’t go.
8.
(used in referring to something as the origin or cause of pain, pleasure, etc.):
Where does it hurt? It looks bad for the candidate.
9.
(used in referring to a source not specifically named or described):
It is said that love is blind.
10.
(used in referring to the general state of affairs; circumstances, fate, or life in general):
How’s it going with you?
11.
(used as an anticipatory subject or object to make a sentence more eloquent or suspenseful or to shift emphasis):
It is necessary that you do your duty. It was a gun that he was carrying.
12.
Informal. (used instead of the pronoun its before a gerund):
It having rained for only one hour didn’t help the crops.
noun
13.
(in children’s games) the player called upon to perform some task, as, in tag, the one who must catch the other players.
14.
Slang.

Idioms
15.
get with it, Slang. to become active or interested:
He was warned to get with it or resign.
16.
have it, Informal.

17.
with it, Slang.

[it] /ɪt/
noun, British Informal.
1.
sweet vermouth:
gin and it.
[its] /ɪts/
1.
contraction of it is:
It’s starting to rain.
2.
contraction of it has: It’s been a long time.
/ɪts/
determiner
1.

/ɪt/
pronoun (subjective or objective)
1.
refers to a nonhuman, animal, plant, or inanimate thing, or sometimes to a small baby: it looks dangerous, give it a bone
2.
refers to an unspecified or implied antecedent or to a previous or understood clause, phrase, etc: it is impossible, I knew it
3.
used to represent human life or experience either in totality or in respect of the present situation: how’s it going?, I’ve had it, to brazen it out
4.
used as a formal subject (or object), referring to a following clause, phrase, or word: it helps to know the truth, I consider it dangerous to go on
5.
used in the nominative as the formal grammatical subject of impersonal verbs. When it functions absolutely in such sentences, not referring to any previous or following clause or phrase, the context is nearly always a description of the environment or of some physical sensation: it is raining, it hurts
6.
(used as complement with be) (informal) the crucial or ultimate point: the steering failed and I thought that was it
noun
7.
(in children’s games) the player whose turn it is to try to touch another Compare he1 (sense 5b)
8.
(informal)

9.
(informal) a desirable quality or ability: he’s really got it
abbreviation
1.
Italy
abbreviation
1.
information technology
/ɪts/
contraction
1.
it is or it has

neuter possessive pronoun; the modern word begins to appear in writing at the end of 16c., from it + genitive/possessive ending ‘s (q.v.), and “at first commonly written it’s, a spelling retained by some to the beginning of the 19c.” [OED]. The apostrophe came to be omitted, perhaps because it’s already was established as a contraction of it is, or by general habit of omitting apostrophes in personal pronouns (hers, yours, theirs, etc.).

The neuter genitive pronoun in Middle English was his, but the clash between grammatical gender and sexual gender, or else the application of the word to both human and non-human subjects, evidently made users uncomfortable. Restriction of his to the masculine and avoidance of it as a neuter pronoun is evidenced in Middle English, and of it and thereof (as in KJV) were used for the neuter possessive. Also, from c.1300, simple it was used as a neuter possessive pronoun. But in literary use, his as a neuter pronoun continued into the 17c.
pron.

Old English hit, neuter nominative and accusative of third person singular pronoun, from Proto-Germanic demonstrative base *khi- (cf. Old Frisian hit, Dutch het, Gothic hita “it”), from PIE *ko- “this” (see he). Used in place of any neuter noun, hence, as gender faded in Middle English, it took on the meaning “thing or animal spoken about before.”

The h- was lost due to being in an unemphasized position, as in modern speech the h- in “give it to him,” “ask her,” “is only heard in the careful speech of the partially educated” [Weekley]. It “the sex act” is from 1610s; meaning “sex appeal (especially in a woman)” first attested 1904 in works of Rudyard Kipling, popularized 1927 as title of a book by Elinor Glyn, and by application of It Girl to silent-film star Clara Bow (1905-1965). In children’s games, meaning “the one who must tag the others” is attested from 1842.

modifier

: Clara Bow, the original it girl

noun

Related Terms

it girl

1. Incompatible time-sharing System
An influential but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for the PDP-6 and PDP-10 at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab. Much AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been “an ITS hacker” qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most venerable sort. ITS pioneered many important innovations, including transparent file sharing between machines and terminal-independent I/O. After about 1982, most actual work was shifted to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run essentially as a hobby and service to the hacker community. The shutdown of the lab’s last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end of an era and sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide (see high moby). The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden is maintaining one “live” ITS site at its computer museum (right next to the only TOPS-10 system still on the Internet), so ITS is still alleged to hold the record for OS in longest continuous use (however, WAITS is a credible rival for this palm).
2. A mythical image of operating system perfection worshiped by a bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and ex-users (see troglodyte). ITS worshipers manage somehow to continue believing that an OS maintained by assembly language hand-hacking that supported only monocase 6-character filenames in one directory per account remains superior to today’s state of commercial art (their venom against Unix is particularly intense).
See also holy wars, Weenix.
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-15)
intelligent tutoring system
Italian
information technology