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you-uns (yənz)
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pron.
Upper Southern US
You. Used in addressing two or more people.

[YOU + dialectal uns, people, variant of ones, pl. of ONE.]

Our Living Language The form uns, derived from ones, occurs in you-uns and also young-uns, "young ones, children." The use of young-uns is common in a number of varieties of English, particularly among older, more rural speakers in Appalachian states. Ones becomes uns through the deletion of an initial (w) sound that is pronounced but not represented in the spelling of ones. Initial (w) sounds may also be deleted in vernacular Southern varieties in the verb was, as in She's here last night for She was here last night. The loss of the initial (w) on ones and was is simply an extension of the process, common in informal Standard English, whereby the initial (w) is lost from the helping verbs will and would, as in He'll go tomorrow for He will go tomorrow and He'd go if I asked him for He would go if I asked him. See Note at y'all.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.