Then Meaning
/ðɛn/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
advAt that time.
advSoon afterward.
Sentence Examples
Then there is a problem...
If you didn't know me that way then you simply didn't know me.
Life was harder then because neither of us had a job.
CEFR Practice Quiz
First, he bought tickets at the counter; ____, he found his seat easily.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please finish your dinner first, and ____ we can go out to the garden and play some football together today.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English then(ne), than(ne), from Old English þonne, þanne, þænne (“then, at that time”), from Proto-West Germanic *þan, from Proto-Germanic *þan (“at that (time), then”), from earlier *þam, from Proto-Indo-European *tóm, accusative masculine of *só (“demonstrative pronoun, that”). Cognate with Dutch dan (“then”), German dann (“then”), Swedish då (“then”), Icelandic þá (“then”). Doublet of than.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"And the Canaanite was then in the land."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 12:6:
"In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts,[…], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity."
— 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
"The country was shaken by the then-recent assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, which happened against the background of profound racial tensions, stark economic inequality and growing opposition to the Vietnam War."
— 2022 January 21, Jacopo Prisco, “Striking photographs show ‘America in Crisis’”, in CNN:
"First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:24:
"Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
First, he bought tickets at the counter; ____, he found his seat easily.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please finish your dinner first, and ____ we can go out to the garden and play some football together today.