What is "hers"

Hers \Hers\ (h[~e]rz), pron. See the Note under Her, pron.

She \She\, pron. [sing. nom. She; poss. Her. or Hers; obj. Her; pl. nom. They; poss. Theiror Theirs; obj. Them.] [OE. she, sche, scheo, scho, AS. se['o], fem. of the definite article, originally a demonstrative pronoun; cf. OS. siu, D. zij, G. sie, OHG. siu, s[=i], si, Icel. s[=u], sj[=a], Goth. si she, s[=o], fem. article, Russ. siia, fem., this, Gr. ?, fem. article, Skr. s[=a], sy[=a]. The possessive her or hers, and the objective her, are from a different root. See Her.]

1. This or that female; the woman understood or referred to; the animal of the female sex, or object personified as feminine, which was spoken of.

   She loved her children best in every wise.
   --Chaucer.

   Then Sarah denied, . . . for she was afraid.
   --Gen. xviii. 15.

2. A woman; a female; -- used substantively. [R.]

   Lady, you are the cruelest she alive.
   --Shak.

   Note: She is used in composition with nouns of common gender, for female, to denote an animal of the female sex; as, a she-bear; a she-cat.

c.1300, hires, from her; a double possessive. Possessive pronouns in Modern English consist of the predicative (mine, thine, his, ours, yours, theirs) that come after the subject, and the attributive (my, thy, his, her, our, your, their) that come before it. In Old English and early Middle English, they were identical. To keep speech fluid, speakers began to affix an -n to the end of my and thy before words that began with vowels. This began late 13c. in the north of England, and by 1500 was standard.\n

\nThen the predicative and attributive pronouns split, and the pronouns in that class usually took up -s, the regular affix of possession. But the non-standard speech of the Midlands and south of England extended -n throughout (hisn, hern, yourn), a habit attested from 14c. and more regular than the standard speech, which mixes -s and -n.

pron. That which belongs to her; the possessive case of she, used without a following noun.

Hers can refer to:

• the possessive pronoun version of she
• two rivers in southern France:
  • Hers-Vif (also: Grand Hers or Hers)
  • Hers-Mort
• Henri G. Hers, a Belgian scientist
• The Georgian name for the indigenous people of Hereti, more commonly called Èrs

HERS can refer to:

• Various energy rating systems:
  • Home energy rating system in the United States
  • House Energy Rating scheme in Australia
• Hertwig's epithelial root sheath
• the Heart and Estrogen/ progestin Replacement Study, a clinical study (published in 1998 by S. Hulley, D. Grady, T. Bush et al. in JAMA, 280:605-613) about the secondary prevention, with conjugated equine estrogens and medroxyprogesterone acetate, of documented ischemic cardiomyopathy in women