du

Du is a term with several unrelated meanings across languages and cultures. In German, du is the informal second-person singular pronoun used to address someone familiar, as in du bist or du hast. The formal alternative is Sie. In standard writing, du is usually lowercase unless it begins a sentence.

In several Scandinavian languages, including Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, du also means the informal you. The exact usage and capitalization rules vary by language, but the basic function as a familiar second-person pronoun is common.

In French, du is a contraction of de + le and serves as a prepositional article meaning “of the” or “from the.” It appears in phrases such as du pain (bread) and du jour (of the day). Like other French contractions, it is not capitalized unless it starts a sentence.

Du is also a transliteration of Chinese surnames, most notably 杜 (Du), which is used by several generations of people in China and elsewhere. Notable individuals include the Tang dynasty poets Du Fu (杜甫) and Du Mu (杜牧). In this context, Du represents a family name rather than a pronoun or article.

Beyond these linguistic senses, Du can appear as part of personal names in various cultures and as a romanization in international contexts. Its exact meaning depends on the language and script in which it is used, making Du a multi-sense term rather than a single, fixed concept.