Indefinite Pronouns

While nouns refer to a person, place, or thing, an indefinite pronoun talks about a non-specific person, place, or thing. Normally, an indefinite pronoun helps to get across an idea of an absolute – like “all” or “none”. These pronouns are used constantly in all types of sentences every single day. In fact, you probably use them more than you realize.

Some of the most common indefinite pronouns are:

all	most
another	neither
any	nobody
anybody	none
anyone	no one
both	one
each	other
either	several
everybody	some
everyone	somebody
few	someone
many	such

Now that you see examples of the most commonly used indefinite pronouns, you probably can think of more examples of how to use them than you can really count. However, depending on how these are used in a sentence, they can be used as an indefinite pronoun OR as an indefinite adjective. Here are some examples of the differences of usage of these pronouns and what makes them a pronoun or an adjective:

Indefinite Pronoun Examples:

• All in the room must take their seats.
• Please take one to your teacher.
• Leave me some.
• Does anyone know about today’s menu?
• Can everyone see the screen?
• Will someone show Lee where the bathroom is?

 Indefinite Adjective Examples:

• All employees in the room must take their seats.
• Please take one flyer to your teacher.
• Leave me some cookies.
• Can you bring me several plates?
• Show Lee where each room is in the school.
• Can you take each chair to the right desk?

Basically, an indefinite pronoun is used as an indefinite adjective if there is a noun behind it, such as in the examples above. Here are some other examples of indefinite pronouns and how to use them in sentences:

• Everyone here are friends.
• Somebody left their coat in the room.
• Nobody saw the vase get broken.
• Everybody is happy with the movie.
• Everyone can go to the movie.
• I love each of those things.
• Someone has taken my pencil.
• Can you take some to mom?
• Will you take one to mom?
• Why are there none left?
• Can you take anything to mom?
• You will see several over on the shelf.
• Somebody put apples where the oranges go.
• Anyone can go with us.
• Nobody is allowed in there.

As you can see, it is very easy to use indefinite pronouns in sentence and they can be used to help you speak about a group of people instead of just one or naming several people or things in a sentence.