The word the is commonly pronounced /ðiː/ whenever it is pronounced as a distinct word, e.g.:
The word is generally pronounced indistinctly as /ðə/ or merely /ð/ in other situations, such as when attached to a word beginning with a consonant sound.
The typographical pronunciation /jiː/ ("Ye Old...") is a deliberately archaic retronym from ye, which is a variant spelling of þe, from Old English þē pronounced thē, /θeː/, /ðeː/ (using y in place of the thorn (þ). It is not actually a separate pronunciation in Middle English. The actual morpheme /jiː/ in Middle English represents ȝe-, a variant spelling of the prefix y- attached to verbs and used to denote a verbal past participle.
From Middle English þe, from Old English þē m (“the, that”, demonstrative pronoun), a late variant of sē, the s- (which occurred in the masculine and feminine nominative singular only) having been replaced by the þ- from the oblique stem.
Originally neutral nominative, in Middle English it superseded all previous Old English nominative forms (sē m, sēo f, þæt n, þā pl); sē is from Proto-West Germanic *siz, from Proto-Germanic *sa, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *só.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian die (“the”), West Frisian de (“the”), Dutch de (“the”), German Low German de (“the”), German der (“the”), Danish de (“the”), Swedish de (“the”), Icelandic sá (“that”) within Germanic and with Sanskrit sá (“the, that”), Ancient Greek ὁ (ho, “the”), Tocharian B se (“this”) among other Indo-European languages.[1]
the
The word the precedes proper nouns in a number of cases, although most proper nouns use no article. There are always exceptions. See also Appendix:English proper nouns for more information.
As a general rule, country names are not preceded by the. There are a few exceptions, most of which are pluralised:
Names of countries containing specifications like kingdom, republic etc are used with the:
Some place names use a definite article:
Musical bands with a plural name are generally used with the:
University names beginning with the word "University", and some other university names, are used with the:
When used before an adjective which is not followed by a noun, it may refer to a group of people for which the adjective is appropriate:
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volume=2Please see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.Dunkel, George E. (2014) Lexikon der indogermanischen Partikeln und Pronominalstämme [Lexicon of Indo-European Particles and Pronominal Stems] (Indogermanische Bibliothek. 2. Reihe: Wörterbücher) (in German), Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH Heidelberg, →ISBN, pages 732-733
From Middle English the, thy, thi, from Old English þē̆, probably a neuter instrumental form ("by that, thereby")—alongside the more common þȳ and þon—of the demonstrative pronoun sē ("that"). Compare Dutch des te ("the, the more"), German desto ("the, all the more"), Norwegian fordi and Norwegian av di ("because"), Icelandic því (“the; because”), Faroese tí, Swedish ty.
the (not comparable)
This is called the "comparative correlative", but it is also known as the "correlative construction", the "conditional comparative", or the "the...the construction".
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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
the
the
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
the (uncountable)
From Proto-Germanic *sa.
the
While it is likely that Crimean Gothic retained grammatical gender, de Busbecq's letter does not mention which articles are used with which words, making it impossible to reconstruct their gender.
the c
common gender |
Singular | |
---|---|---|
indefinite | definite | |
nominative | the | theen |
genitive | thes | theens |
the
the m (fem. theko)
the (plural thes)
the
the
the
the
the
the
the
the (indeclinable, relative)
From Proto-Germanic *sa. The original s- was replaced by th- by analogy with the other forms, but still preserved in the variant sē.
thē
From Proto-Germanic *þa, from Proto-Indo-European *tó, *te-.
the (indeclinable, relative)
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
the (تھےۡ)
From Old English se.
the
Borrowed from English the, which sounds similar to Serbo-Croatian da.
the (no known Cyrillic variant)
the (stem -dhe-)
singular | plural | ||
---|---|---|---|
1st person | sedheé | naxedheé | |
2nd person | nedheé | ||
3rd person | 1) | — | gidheé |
2) | medheé | godheé | |
4th person | yedheé | ||
reflexive | sp. | ɂededheé | kededheé |
unsp. | dedheé | ||
reciprocal | — | ɂełedheé | |
indefinite | ɂedheé | ||
areal | godheé | ||
1) Used when the subject is a group of human beings and the object is singular. 2) Used when the previous condition does not apply. |
the n
Declension of the | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | the | theet | theer | theerna |
Genitive | thes | theets | theers | theernas |
Non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 紗 (SV: sa).
the
the
Welsh mutation | |||
---|---|---|---|
radical | soft | nasal | aspirate |
te | de | nhe | the |
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. |
the