vostè

See also: voste and vosté

Catalan

Contraction of vostra (“your”) mercè (“mercy”). First attested in the 16th century.^[1]

vostè (strong)

Vostè is a very polite form of address for a single person. It is used with the third-person singular form of the verb. (Compare the polite usage of você in Portuguese and usted in Spanish.) Traditionally it was only used with judges, doctors, and so on, with vós being used in most polite situations, for example with elderly people, and tu being used in informal situations. Nowadays, tu is the most common form, even in formal contexts, and vostè is becoming more common than vós because of contact with Spanish. In Valencian, this word is usually spelled vosté, since it has /e/ instead of /ɛ/.

Catalan personal pronouns and clitics
			strong/subject	weak (direct object)		weak (indirect object)		possessive
			strong/subject	proclitic	enclitic	proclitic	enclitic	possessive
singular	1st person	standard	jo, mi³	em, m’	-me, ’m	em, m’	-me, ’m	meu
	1st person	majestic¹	nós	ens	-nos, ’ns	ens	-nos, ’ns	nostre
	2nd person	standard	tu	et, t’	-te, ’t	et, t’	-te, ’t	teu
		formal¹	vós	us	-vos, -us	us	-vos, -us	vostre
		very formal²	vostè	el, l’	-lo, ’l	li	-li	seu
	3rd person	m	ell	el, l’	-lo, ’l	li	-li	seu
		f	ella	la, l’⁴	-la	li	-li	seu
		n		ho	-ho	li	-li	seu
plural
	1st person		nosaltres	ens	-nos, ’ns	ens	-nos, ’ns	nostre
	2nd person	standard	vosaltres	us	-vos, -us	us	-vos, -us	vostre
	2nd person	formal²	vostès	els	-los, ’ls	els	-los, ’ls	seu
	3rd person	m	ells	els	-los, ’ls	els	-los, ’ls	seu
	3rd person	f	elles	les	-les	els	-los, ’ls	seu
3rd person reflexive			si	es, s’	-se, ’s	es, s’	-se, ’s	seu
adverbial	ablative/genitive			en, n’	-ne, ’n
adverbial	locative			hi	-hi

¹ Behaves grammatically as plural. ² Behaves grammatically as third person.
³ Only as object of a preposition. ⁴ Not before unstressed (h)i-, (h)u-.

^ “vostè”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.