[proh-noun] 
| any member of a small class of words found in many languages that are used as replacements or substitutes for nouns and noun phrases, and that have very general reference, as I, you, he, this, who, what. Pronouns are sometimes formally distinguished from nouns, as in English by the existence of special objective forms, as him for he or me for I, and by nonoccurrence with an article or adjective. |
| pro·noun (prō'noun') n. Abbr. pron. or pr.
[Late Middle English pronoun, pronoune, partial translation of Latin prōnōmen (translation of Greek antōnumiā, interchange of names, pronoun) : prō-, pro- + nōmen, name, noun; see noun.] |
A word that takes the place of a noun. She, herself, it, and this are examples of pronouns. If we substituted pronouns for the nouns in the sentence “Please give the present to Karen,” it would read “Please give it to her.”
