Indefinite pronouns refer to people, things, or places in a general way, without saying exactly which ones. Unlike determiners, they stand alone — no noun follows them. Someone called. Nothing happened. She went somewhere quiet.
This lesson gathers the compound forms into one taxonomy and looks at the features that belong specifically to the pronoun versions: the -else extension, possessive forms, and singular they.
The compound table
The main group is built from four prefixes — some-, any-, no-, every- — combined with three endings for people, things, and places.
some-
- people: someone, somebody
- things: something
- places: somewhere
any-
- people: anyone, anybody
- things: anything
- places: anywhere
no-
- people: no one, nobody
- things: nothing
- places: nowhere
every-
- people: everyone, everybody
- things: everything
- places: everywhere
The distribution mirrors the determiners some, any, no, every — positive statements lean on some-, questions and negatives use any-, no- expresses absence, and every- covers the whole group. Those rules are covered separately under determiners.
-one or -body
Someone and somebody mean exactly the same thing. The same holds for anyone / anybody, no one / nobody, everyone / everybody. The choice is purely stylistic.
The -one forms feel slightly more formal and are preferred in written English — essays, reports, news articles. The -body forms are a touch more conversational and appear more often in speech. Either is correct in any context.
Note the spelling: no one is written as two separate words. The other three — someone, anyone, everyone — are always one word.
Singular agreement
All compounds ending in -one, -body, and -thing take a singular verb, even when the meaning feels plural.
This feels counterintuitive with everyone and everybody — they clearly refer to many people — but grammatically they are singular. Full agreement rules with more complex subjects are handled separately.
The -else extension
Adding else after a compound means "in addition" or "other than the one already mentioned". It is one of the few adjectives in English that comes after the word it modifies, and it attaches almost exclusively to indefinite pronouns.
Else also forms possessives in the usual way — someone else's, nobody else's.
The apostrophe attaches to else, never to the pronoun itself. The combination someone's else is always wrong.
Possessive forms
Indefinite compounds form possessives the same way nouns do — by adding 's.
Only the -one and -body forms (referring to people) normally take a possessive. Something's and nothing's exist but are rare and usually appear in fixed phrases.
Singular *they*
When the person's gender is unknown, unspecified, or deliberately left open, English uses they, them, and their to refer back to a singular indefinite pronoun. This is called singular they, and it has been part of English since the 14th century.
The older alternative — he or she, his or her — is clumsy and now sounds dated. Compare:
Singular they is fully accepted in formal writing. The Chicago Manual of Style, the Associated Press, the APA, the MLA, the Oxford English Dictionary, and Merriam-Webster all recognize it as correct. It is also the natural choice when referring to a person whose gender is non-binary or simply not relevant to the sentence.
One subtlety: even though they refers to a single person, the verb after they is always plural. They are, not they is.
Other indefinite pronouns
Besides the compounds, a second group of words also acts as indefinite pronouns when used on their own: some, any, none, all, both, each, either, neither, many, few, several, much, little.
Their behaviour as determiners — and their rules for agreement, quantity, and choice — is covered separately in the section on determiners. This lesson focuses on the compound forms, which are where the unique grammar lives.
Common mistakes
Verb agreement
-else possessives
Spelling
Singular they
Some- vs any-