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Definition 2024

See also: you's

yous

(dialectal, chiefly Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, New England, Northeastern United States, Chicago, Liverpudlian, Cape Breton, Ireland, Scotland) You (plural). [from 19th c.]
(dialectal) You (singular).
- 1909, PG Wodehouse, The Gem Collector:
  ‘Dere ain't no use for me dis side, Mr. Chames,’ he said. ‘New York's de spot. Youse don't want none of me, now you're married.’
- 1938, Patrick Kavanagh, The Green Fool:
  ‘Yous will meet us here outside this pub,’ Harry Curniskey said.
- 1988, Kathy Lette, Girls' Night Out:
  ‘But what I also seen is that youse have never had a real man before, datin' all them boys. Youse have never had anyone who'd stand up to youse.’
- 1992, Edward Bond, In the Company of Men:
  You think yous can live wi'oot money! Few months doon this ****, you'll murder for money!
plural of you
- 1992, Robert Dubin, Central Life Interests: Creative Individualism in a Complex World, page 10:
  Most of your life after babyhood has been played out by the several yous.
- 2010, Patrick M Morley, The Man in the Mirror: Solving the 24 Problems Men Face, page 36:
  There are two yous — the visible you and the real you. The visible you is the you that is known by others.

Yous(e) as a plural is found mainly in (Northern) England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, northern Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario in Canada and parts of the northeastern United States (especially areas like Boston where there was historically Irish immigration). It also occurs in Scouse.
Yous(e) as a singular is found in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and scattered throughout working class Italian-American communities in the Rust Belt.