Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word den. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word den, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say den in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word den you have here. The definition of the word den will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofden, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
(intransitive,zoology) Of an animal, to use as a den; to take up residence in.
2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 203:
Although present in virtually all habitats, it preferred to den in caves, so its distribution, especially in cold, northern areas, may have been limited to limestone and other rocky regions where caves form.
2023 August 30, Patrick Greenfield, “Why it may be time to stop using the polar bear as a symbol of the climate crisis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
“Denning” – behaviour around making dens – has changed and bears are swimming long distances, but, says Aars, there is still enough sea ice in the spring for the bears to hunt successfully.
“den” in Martalar, Umberto Martello, Bellotto, Alfonso (1974) Dizionario della lingua Cimbra dei Sette Communi vicentini, 1st edition, Roana, Italy: Instituto di Cultura Cimbra A. Dal Pozzo
(archaic)Dative masculine, neuter, and plural of the definite article.
Nederland in den goeden ouden tijd. — The Netherlands in the good old days.
De baron gaf den koetsier een wenk en het rijtuig rolde heen. — The baron gave the coachman a sign and the carriage rode away. (from the story Gaston von Frankrijk by J.J.A. Goeverneur)
In den beginne schiep God den hemel en de aarde — In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
(Southern,dialectal)Masculine singular of the definite article, alternative form of de.
Usage notes
The distinction of the dative case, which had long been frail and without any basis in actual speech, widely fell out of use over the course of the 19th century. The use of den for the masculine object case, however, remained usual in the written language until the spelling reform of 1947. Since then only de is generally used in standard Dutch. Den survives in idiomatic expressions, including surnames (e.g. Van den Berg).
In Flemish, Brabantian, and Limburgish dialects and vernaculars, den is still widely used with masculine nouns, but without any case distinction. Often den is used before vowels and certain consonants, while de is used before other consonants.
The now common pronunciation /dɛn/ is a spelling pronunciation. Before the word became archaic—and still in those lects where it is not archaic—it was pronounced with a schwa, /dən/.
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
the; only used if there is an adjective or numeral to the noun
Han køyrde den raude bilen.
He drove the red car.
Usage notes
Usually put preceding the noun. In some rare cases of poetry, the article may come after the noun.
The noun is nearly always in its definite form. Exceptions include fixed expressions and poetry. Attributive adjectives are always in their definite forms.
May be omitted when used with the determiner same, used with an ordinal number, or an adjective denotes an inherent or natural attribute of the thing. Omission occurs more frequently, colloquially, in certain dialects.
IPA(key): /dɛɲː/(palatalized, Northen Norwegian, attested as dein)
The attested Cyrillic spelling денъ indicates no palatalization. The letter "е" in non-Russian words may have two different ways of pronunciation (as /je/ or /e/). The variant closest to Norwegian pronunciation would be /e/:
The pronoun has no conjugated forms, in difference from Norwegian, which conjugates this pronoun after gender and number (e. g. det), which are absent in Russenorsk.
the (when an adjective is used with a common gender noun in the definite – det is used for neuter gender nouns, and de for plural nouns, regardless of gender)
en bil
a car
bilen
the car
en röd bil
a red car
den röda bilen
the red car
röda bilar
red cars (for comparison – note that "röd" has the same inflection in the definite and plural)
bilen den röda
the red car (rare, poetic – intuitively, "the car, the red one" / "the car the red")
Kalla den Änglamarken eller Himlajorden om du vill. Jorden vi ärvde och lunden den gröna.
Call it the Angel Ground or the Heaven Earth if you like. The Earth we inherited and the green grove ("the grove the green" – poetic). (Lyrics from Änglamark.)
the ... one (when the noun is implied, which is an idiomatic construction)
– Vilken tröja vill du ha? – Den blå.
– Which shirt do you want? – The blue one.
– Vilken glass vill du ha? – Den största.
– Which ice cream do you want? – The biggest (one).
Usage notes
"The " is expressed as "den/det/de (common gender, neuter gender, and plural, respectively) ." For example, "smaskig" (yummy) and "hamburgare" (hamburger – common gender) turns into "den smaskiga hamburgaren" (the yummy-definite hamburger-definite), "röd" (red) and "hus" (house – neuter gender) turns into "det röda huset" (the red-definite house-definite), and "snabb" (fast) and "bilar" (cars) turns into "de snabba bilarna" (the fast-definite cars-definite). "Den/det/de" is not optional, except often being left out in proper nouns and other lexicalized noun phrases with an adjective that are in the definite (giving "smaskiga hamburgaren" something of a "pub name" feel) – see de for examples.
The definite form of an adjective is identical to the plural form except optionally having "-e" instead of "-a" in the singular for nouns whose natural gender is masculine. For example, "lång" (tall) and "man" (man) turns into either "den långe mannen" or "den långa mannen," while "lång" (tall) and "kvinna" (woman) can only be expressed as "den långa kvinnan." Present participles – like in "den sjungande kvinnan" (the singing woman) and "de simmande fiskarna" (the swimming fishes) – do not inflect, and stay the same in indefinite, definite, singular, and plural noun phrases.
The construction above is called "double definiteness," since it can be considered redundant. It also occurs in Norwegian and Faroese, but not in Danish, where "the red house" is "det røde hus."