the

CEFRA1

/ði/ [ðɪj]

article

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    article

    Used before a noun when referring to a particular person or thing.

  2. 02

    article

    Extra detail

    With a comparative or with more and a verb phrase, establishes a correlation with one or more other such comparatives.

Examples

  • The baby had been abandoned by its mother.

  • I was in the mountains.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • /ðiː/

Deep Dive

article

Extra meanings

  1. Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun

  2. The definite grammatical article that shows that the noun phrase that immediately follows it is definitely identifiable...

  3. ...because it has already been mentioned, is to be completely specified in the same sentence, or very shortly thereafter.

More examples

In context

  • The men and women watched the man give the birdseed to the bird.

  • You live on Main Street, don't you? You know, you should tell the mayor the street needs cleaning.

  • I’m reading the book Mary reviewed. (Compare I’m reading a book Mary reviewed.)

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

blank moon was bright and full last night.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

article

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pronoun), a late variant of sē, the s- (which occurred in the masculine and feminine nominative singular only) having been replaced by the þ- from the oblique stem. replaced words, cognates Originally neutral nominative, in Middle English it superseded all previous Old English nominative forms (sē m, sēo f, þæt n, þā pl); sē is from Proto-West Germanic *siz, from Proto-Germanic *sa, ultimately from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”)...