■ pronoun [ third person singular ]
1》 used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to a male person or animal previously mentioned.
2》 referring to a person or animal of unspecified sex (now largely replaced by ‘~ or her’ or ‘they’).
3》 archaic or N. Amer. dialect ~self.
Origin
OE, dative singular form of he , hē 'he' and hit 'it'.
Usage
Why is it often stated that you should say I could never be as good as he rather than I could never be as good as ~ ? For a discussion of this issue, see usage at than .