their: [12] Like they and them, their was borrowed from Old Norse. Its source was theirra, the genitive plural form of the demonstrative adjective sá. The pronoun form theirs [13] is an English creation. => them, they
their (pron.)
plural possessive pronoun, c. 1200, from Old Norse tierra "of them," genitive of plural personal and demonstrative pronoun teir "they" (see they). Replaced Old English hiera. As an adjective from late 14c. Use with singular objects, scorned by grammarians, is attested from c. 1300, and OED quotes this in Fielding, Goldsmith, Sydney Smith, and Thackeray. Theirs (c. 1300) is a double possessive. Alternative form theirn (1836) is attested in Midlands and southern dialect in U.K. and the Ozarks region of the U.S.
雙語例句
1. They have maintained their optimism in the face of desolating subjugation.
面對遭征服的悲慘命運，他們保持了樂觀的態度。
來自柯林斯例句
2. He said they should turn their fire on the Conservative Party instead.
他說他們應該掉轉槍口，向保守黨開火。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Husband and wife are now taxed separately on their incomes.
現在夫妻雙方分別按各自的收入納稅。
來自柯林斯例句
4. They had a snobbish dislike for their intellectual and social inferiors.
他們非常勢利，不喜歡智力和社會地位不如自己的人。
來自柯林斯例句
5. Their first car rolls off the production line on December 16.