the
/ðə/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 7.73 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
article
Used before a noun phrase, including a simple noun
Example Sentences
- "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"
- "A car is parked right outside my house. Since it's difficult to find a parking space, I hope the car won't be there later. the cow jumped over the moon (1760 (date first published), Mother Goose's Melody (the book title), "Hey Diddle Diddle" (the rhyme title))"
- "I sleep in the bedroom!"
Etymology
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pronoun), a late variant of sē, the s- (which occurred in the masculine and feminine nominative singular only) having been replaced by the þ- from the oblique stem. replaced words, cognates Originally neutral nominative, in Middle English it superseded all previous Old English nominative forms (sē m, sēo f, þæt n, þā pl); sē is from Proto-West Germanic *siz, from Proto-Germanic *sa, ultimately from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”) within Germanic and with Sanskrit स (sá, “the, that”), Ancient Greek ὁ (ho, “the”), Tocharian B se (“this”) among other Indo-European languages.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: þe, þē, *siz, *sa, *só, the
Usage
Inflected Forms
da (alternative)
d' (alternative)
teh (alternative)
de (alternative)
t' (alternative)
th' (alternative)
ye (alternative)
yᵉ (alternative)
yͤ (alternative)
ẏe (alternative)
ẏᵉ (alternative)