the

Pronunciation


The word the is commonly pronounced whenever it is pronounced as a distinct word, e.g.: The word is generally pronounced indistinctly as or merely  in other situations, such as when attached to a word beginning with a consonant sound.
 * When it is used for emphasis (This is where the hospital for open-heart surgery is).
 * When the speaker pauses between the and the next word.
 * In many but not all dialects, when the next word begins with a vowel sound (compare with  vs. ).

The typographical pronunciation ("Ye Old...") is a deliberately archaic retronym from, which is a variant spelling of þe, from Old English þē pronounced thē,   (using y in place of the thorn (þ). It is not actually a separate pronunciation in Middle English. The actual morpheme  in Middle English represents ȝe-, a variant spelling of the prefix y- attached to verbs and used to denote a verbal past participle.

Etymology 1
From, from , a late variant of , the s- (which occurred in the masculine and feminine nominative singular only) having been replaced by the þ- from the oblique stem.

Originally neutral nominative, in Middle English it superseded all previous Old English nominative forms ; is from, from , ultimately from.

Cognate with 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 within Germanic and with 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 among other Indo-European languages.

Article

 * I’m reading the book Mary reviewed. (Compare I’m reading a book Mary reviewed.)
 * You live on Main Street, don't you? You know, you should tell the mayor the street needs cleaning.
 * The men and women watched the man give the birdseed to the bird.
 * The street that runs all the way through my hometown.
 * No one knows how many galaxies there are in the universe.
 * God save the Queen!
 * No one in the whole country had seen it before.
 * I don't think I'll get to it until the morning.
 * Take me to the airport/station/hospital/office/park/match/meeting.
 * A stone hit him on the head. (= “A stone hit him on his head.”)
 * How's the wife? (= "How is your wife?")
 * square the circle; feel the pinch; beat around the bush; throw the baby out with the bathwater
 * That is the hospital to go to for heart surgery.
 * That was the juiciest apple pie ever.
 * May the better man win.
 * The downy woodpecker can be found in the same environments as the hairy woodpecker.
 * The Bushes have held political office for several decades and the Kennedys longer.
 * That apple pie was the best.
 * Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
 * One doesn't choose the color of one's chess pieces, the white are assigned to the player who moves first.
 * the Chinese
 * the Irish
 * square the circle; feel the pinch; beat around the bush; throw the baby out with the bathwater
 * That is the hospital to go to for heart surgery.
 * That was the juiciest apple pie ever.
 * May the better man win.
 * The downy woodpecker can be found in the same environments as the hairy woodpecker.
 * The Bushes have held political office for several decades and the Kennedys longer.
 * That apple pie was the best.
 * Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
 * One doesn't choose the color of one's chess pieces, the white are assigned to the player who moves first.
 * the Chinese
 * the Irish
 * The downy woodpecker can be found in the same environments as the hairy woodpecker.
 * The Bushes have held political office for several decades and the Kennedys longer.
 * That apple pie was the best.
 * Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
 * One doesn't choose the color of one's chess pieces, the white are assigned to the player who moves first.
 * the Chinese
 * the Irish
 * Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
 * One doesn't choose the color of one's chess pieces, the white are assigned to the player who moves first.
 * the Chinese
 * the Irish
 * the Irish

Usage notes
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:
 * Countries
 * the Netherlands (or The Netherlands)
 * the Bahamas (or The Bahamas)
 * the Maldives (or The Maldives)
 * the Seychelles (or The Seychelles; also used without the article)
 * the Philippines
 * the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, etc
 * the Gambia (or The Gambia)
 * the Sudan (or The Sudan)
 * the Ukraine (or The Ukraine; article dropped since 1991)
 * the Yemen (or The Yemen)
 * the Lebanon (or The Lebanon)
 * the United States of America
 * the United Kingdom
 * the United Arab Emirates
 * the Czech Republic
 * the Swiss Confederation
 * the Kingdom of Denmark
 * the Republic of Austria
 * the Sultanate of Oman
 * the European Union
 * Place names
 * All oceans (the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean)
 * All seas (the Red Sea, the Bering Sea, the Caribbean Sea), and straits (the Strait of Magellan, the Bering Strait, the Bosphorus)
 * All rivers (the Amazon, the Nile, the Mississippi, the Seine, the Yangtze), canals (the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal) and deltas (the Nile Delta, the Orinoco Delta, the Colorado River Delta)
 * All art galleries (the Tate, the Louvre, The Smithsonian American Art Museum), all museums with the word museum in the name (the Museum of Natural History, the British Museum)
 * Most English-language newspapers (The New York Times, The Guardian, The Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal)
 * All North American railroads, even when not referred to by their full names or only by nicknames (the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Reading (Reading Railroad), the Frisco (St. Louis–San Francisco Railway))
 * Some towns (the Bronx, The Hague, The Valley, The Farrington, The Quarter, The Plains, The Dalles, The Villages, The Woodlands, The Pas, the Vatican, The Hyde, the West End, the East End, or the City of ...)
 * Bands
 * Universities
 * Universities
 * Universities
 * the University of North Carolina
 * the Ohio State University

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:
 * the Scottish = Scots
 * the rich = rich people

Alternative forms

 * ye, ye , yͤ
 * ẏe, ẏe
 * ye, ye , yͤ
 * ẏe, ẏe
 * ye, ye , yͤ
 * ẏe, ẏe

Derived terms

 * all the time
 * Jack the Ripper
 * Proverbs using the (article)
 * Idioms using the (article)
 * Proverbs using the (article)
 * Idioms using the (article)
 * Proverbs using the (article)
 * Idioms using the (article)
 * Idioms using the (article)

Translations

 * Afrikaans:
 * Albanian: -a, -i,  -u
 * Amharic: (-u, -w) (masculine) (-wa, -itwa, -ätwa) (feminine)
 * Arabic:
 * Egyptian Arabic: ال,
 * Aragonese: lo
 * Aramaic: ־א, ־י, ־תא
 * Armenian: -ը, -ն
 * Aromanian: -lu
 * Asturian:
 * Bashkir:
 * Basque:
 * Belarusian:
 * Belizean Creole: di
 * Bengali: suffixes based on number, formality and animacy
 * Bikol Central:
 * Breton:,  ,
 * Bulgarian:
 * Burmese:
 * Catalan:,  ,  , , ,  ,  , ,
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin:
 * Chuukese: ewe, we
 * Coptic:
 * Bohairic: ⲡⲓ-
 * Sahidic: ⲡ-
 * Cornish: an
 * Czech:
 * Dalmatian: el
 * Danish: or ,  or  , -ene or -ne ,
 * Dutch: ,
 * Egyptian:
 * Archaic Egyptian, Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian: not used
 * Late Egyptian:
 * Esperanto:
 * Estonian:
 * Faroese: -in;  tann,
 * Finnish:
 * Colloquial Finnish :
 * French:, , , (before a vowel or a mute h)
 * Friulian: il
 * Galician:
 * Georgian:
 * Old Georgian: იგი
 * German:, ,
 * Alemannic German: de
 * Central Franconian: dä
 * Silesian: dr
 * Gothic: 𐍃𐌰
 * Greek:
 * Ancient: ὁ
 * Epic: not used, ὁ (rare)
 * Modern:
 * Guerrero Amuzgo: i', eⁿ'
 * Hajong: -ৰৗ
 * Hawaiian: ka, ke ; nā
 * Hebrew:
 * Hindi:
 * Hungarian: ,
 * Icelandic: -inn,
 * Ido: ,
 * Igbo:
 * Ilocano:
 * dagiti,
 * ti,
 * iti,
 * kadagiti,
 * da,
 * ni,
 * kada
 * ken ni,
 * Indonesian:, , , ,
 * Interlingua:
 * Irish:, na
 * Old Irish: in, a
 * Istriot: el
 * Italian:, , , , ,
 * Japanese:, , ,
 * Jarawa: ɖi
 * Kazakh:
 * Khmer:
 * Korean:
 * Ladin: l
 * Ladino: איל
 * Lao:
 * Latin:
 * Medieval Latin:, ly
 * Vulgar Latin: ,
 * Lithuanian:
 * Low German:
 * Macedonian: see Appendix:Macedonian articles
 * Malay:
 * Maltese: il-
 * Maori: ,
 * Marshallese: eo, ro, ko
 * Middle English: þe, the
 * Mirandese: l
 * Mòcheno: der, de, s, de
 * Mongolian:
 * Norman: l'
 * Northern Kankanay:
 * din,
 * si,
 * san,
 * nan,
 * isdin,
 * ken
 * issan,
 * isnan,
 * is,
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål:, , , ,
 * Nynorsk:, den, -et, -en, -a
 * Occitan:,  ,  , ,  , ,  ,
 * Old Dutch: thie
 * Old English:
 * Old Saxon: thē
 * Persian: ; for definite direct object
 * Pipil: ne
 * Pitcairn-Norfolk: t'
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese:, , ,
 * Rapa Nui: te
 * Romani: o, i, e
 * Romanian: -ul, -a, ,
 * Romansch: il
 * Russian:
 * Samoan: le
 * Sardinian: su, sa
 * Scots: the
 * Scottish Gaelic: an
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Sicilian:
 * Sinhalese:
 * Slovak:
 * Slovene:
 * Spanish:, , , ,
 * Swahili: ya
 * Swedish: ,
 * Tagalog:
 * Tamil:
 * Tatar:
 * Thai:
 * Tok Pisin: dispela
 * Tongan: te
 * Turkish:
 * Tuvaluan: te
 * Ukrainian:
 * Urdu:
 * Venetian:
 * Veps:
 * Vietnamese:
 * Volapük:,  ,
 * Võro:
 * Votic:
 * Walloon: ,
 * Welsh:
 * West Frisian:
 * Yiddish: דער, די, דאָס, די
 * Zazaki:, ,
 * Volapük:,  ,
 * Võro:
 * Votic:
 * Walloon: ,
 * Welsh:
 * West Frisian:
 * Yiddish: דער, די, דאָס, די
 * Zazaki:, ,


 * Dutch:
 * Finnish:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 * French:
 * Greek:
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:
 * Macedonian: -ов
 * Portuguese:
 * Spanish:
 * Swedish: ,


 * Afrikaans:
 * German:
 * Japanese:
 * Persian:
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese:
 * Tok Pisin: dispela


 * Afrikaans:
 * Dutch:
 * Estonian:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * German:
 * Greek:
 * Japanese:
 * Portuguese:
 * Swedish:


 * Afrikaans:
 * Dutch:
 * Estonian:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * German:
 * Greek:
 * Hungarian:
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:
 * Macedonian: -те
 * Portuguese:
 * Spanish: ,
 * Swedish:


 * Afrikaans:
 * Dutch:
 * Esperanto:
 * Estonian:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * Galician:
 * German:
 * Greek:
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:
 * Ladin: l
 * Portuguese:
 * Spanish:
 * Swedish:
 * Venetian:


 * Afrikaans:
 * Dutch:
 * Estonian:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * German:
 * Greek:
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:, though something + というもの is often used.
 * Macedonian: -от
 * Portuguese:
 * Spanish:
 * Swedish:
 * Tagalog:

Etymology 2
From, , , from , probably a neuter instrumental form ("by that, thereby")—alongside the more common and —of the demonstrative pronoun  ("that"). Compare 🇨🇬 ("the, the more"), 🇨🇬 ("the, all the more"), 🇨🇬 and 🇨🇬 ("because"), 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬.

Adverb

 * The hotter the better. comma usually omitted in such very short expressions
 * The more I think about it, the weaker it looks.
 * The more money donated, the more books purchased, and the more happy children.
 * It looks weaker and weaker, the more I think about it.
 * It was a difficult time, but I’m the wiser for it.
 * It was a difficult time, and I’m {none - not any} the wiser for it.
 * I'm much the wiser for having had a difficult time like that.
 * 1)  Beyond all others.
 * We went the furthest under her leadership.
 * They trusted him the most.
 * We went the furthest under her leadership.
 * They trusted him the most.

Usage notes
This is called the "comparative correlative", but it is also known as the "correlative construction", the "conditional comparative", or the "the...the construction".

Translations

 * Afrikaans: hoe + comp., hoe + comp.
 * Arabic: كُلَّمَا كَانَ... كَانَ ... (example: كلما كان أرخص كان أفضل (kúllama kāna ʾárḵaṣ kāna ʾáfḍal ‘the cheaper the better’) *(used with a verb in the past tense, "kāna" or others)
 * Catalan: com + comp., comp.
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin: 越……越…… (example: 越 热 越 好 yuè rè yuè hǎo "the hotter the better"), 愈……愈……
 * Cimbrian: bo + comp., bo + comp.
 * Czech: čím + comp., tím + comp.
 * Dutch: hoe + comp., hoe + comp.
 * Esperanto: ju + comp., des + comp.
 * Finnish: mitä + comp., sitä + comp., mitä + comp., sen + comp.
 * French: comp., comp.; colloquial or regional usage, not Standard French: le + comp., le + comp.
 * German: je + comp., desto + comp.; je + comp., umso + comp.; je + comp., je + comp.
 * Hungarian: minél + comp., annál + comp.
 * Icelandic: því + comp., því + comp.
 * Irish: dá + abstract noun, (is ea) is + comp.
 * Japanese: (conditional -reba + dictionary form + hodo + adjective 2) adj.1 + れば + adj.1 程 + adj.2 (example: 暑ければ暑い程良い atsukereba atsui hodo ii "the hotter the better")
 * Korean: -을수록
 * Latin: quō + comp., eō comp.
 * Malay: semakin..., semakin...; lagi..., lagi...
 * Norwegian: jo + comp., desto + comp., jo + comp., jo + comp., dess + comp., dess + comp.
 * Nynorsk: di + comp., di + comp.
 * Old English: þȳ + comp., þȳ + comp.
 * Persian: + comp.
 * Polish: im + comp., tym + comp.
 * Portuguese: quanto + comp., comp. (ex: quanto mais quente, melhor "the hotter the better")
 * Russian: чем + comp., тем + comp.
 * Sorbian:
 * Upper Sorbian: comp. + a + comp.
 * Spanish: cuanto + comp., comp., entre + comp., comp.
 * Swedish: ju + comp., desto + comp.
 * Thai: + comp.
 * Turkish: ne kadar + comp., o kadar + comp.


 * Finnish:  ,
 * German:
 * Portuguese: No word accompanies the comparative in this usage.


 * Slovene:

Preposition

 * 1) For each; per.

Noun

 * 1) A topology name.

Etymology
From.

Article

 * 1) the

Usage notes
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.

Pronoun

 * 1) I first person singular pronoun

Pronoun

 * 1) you (thou)

Noun

 * 1) tea

Article

 * 1) * 14th c., . General Prologue: 1-2.
 * "enm"
 * "enm"

- Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

Noun

 * 1) ear

Particle

 * 1) that, who, which

Etymology 1
From. The original s- was replaced by th- by analogy with the other forms, but still preserved in the variant.

Determiner

 * 1) that, that one
 * them uuīha uuīsa lēstean: To obey that holy wise.

Etymology 2
From, from ,.

Particle

 * 1) that, who, which

Postposition

 * to
 * 1) for
 * at

Etymology
From.

Determiner

 * 1)  definite article

Usage notes

 * The definite article is used a lot more frequently idiomatically in Scots than in English.

Etymology
, which sounds similar to 🇨🇬.

Conjunction

 * neki kreten the ih drka emotivno
 * some jerk to fuck with them emotionally
 * the ovo okačim na fb wall, garant ne bih opstala od borKINJa za ženska prava
 * if I posted this on my FB wall, I surely wouldn't survive the women rights fighters
 * if I posted this on my FB wall, I surely wouldn't survive the women rights fighters

Etymology
Cognates include 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) belt

Noun

 * 1)  (tea)

Etymology 1
.

Noun

 * 1) a kind of silk gauze

Adjective

 * 1) having a strong and fragrant smell or flavor, usually overlaps with what described as "minty" or "citrusy" in English