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.
例文
1. They have maintained their optimism in the face of desolating subjugation.
征服された悲惨な運命に直面して、彼らは楽観的な態度を維持した。
2.He said they should turn their fire on the Conservative Party instead.
彼らは銃口を回して保守党に火をつけるべきだと言った。
3.Husband and wife are now taxed separately on their incomes.
現在、夫婦はそれぞれの収入で納税している。
4.They had a snobish dislike for their intellectual and social inferiors.
彼らは非常に勢いが良く、知能や社会的地位が自分に及ばない人を嫌っている。
5. Their first car rolls off the production line on December 16.