Look up the in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The word the is the only definite article of the English language. The is the most common word in the English language.^[1] Matt Johnson The The is an English musical and multimedia group that has been around since 1979 in various forms, with Matt Johnson being the only constant band member. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). ... An article is a word that is next to a noun or any word that modifies a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The article the is used in English as the very first part of a noun phrase. For example: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In linguistics, a noun phrase is a phrase whose Head is a noun. ...

It's the end of time.

Here "the end of time" is a noun phrase. The use of the signals that the reference is to a specific and unique instance of the concept (such as person, object, or idea) expressed in the noun phrase. Here, the implication is that there is one end of time, and that it has arrived.

The time is 9:40 AM.

There are many times, but the meaning here is the time now, of which (at the moment the sentence was produced) there is only one.

That bear is the hairiest being ever.

Only one being can be the hairiest ever.

Etymology

Linguists believe that the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages (i.e., the Proto-Indo-European language) did not have a definite article. Most of the languages in this family do not have definite or indefinite articles; there is no article in Latin, Sanskrit, or in some modern Indo-European languages like standard Russian. Errors with the use of the and other determiners are common in people learning English. Classical Greek has a definite article, but Homeric Greek did not. In the etymologies of these and many other languages, the definite article arose by a demonstrative pronoun or adjective changing its usage; compare the fate of the Latin demonstrative "ille" (meaning, "that") in the Romance languages, becoming French le, la, l’ and les, Spanish el and la, Italian il and la, and Portuguese o and a, among others. The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, the Americas as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. ... An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made to the noun. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... Sanskrit ( , ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Determiners are words which modify nouns. ... Homeric Greek is the form of Ancient Greek that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. ... The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ...

The and that are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a definite article se, in the masculine gender, seo (feminine), and þæt (neuter). In Middle English these had all merged into the, the ancestor of the Modern English word. Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... Look up feminine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up that in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The word neuter can refer to: the property of being neither biologically male or female: being asexual the sterilization (castration, spaying, etc. ... Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... Merge, merging, or merger can have several different meanings: In business and economics, a merger is the combination of two companies into one larger company In computer science, either: the merge algorithm which combines two or more sorted lists into a single sorted one the merge sort, a sort algorithm... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

In Middle English the (þe) was frequently abbreviated as a þ with a small e above it, similar to the abbreviation for that, which was a þ with a small t above it. When the letter Thorn evolved into a y shape in latter Middle English and Early Modern English, the abbreviation similarly changed to a y with an e above it. This can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the King James Version of the Bible in places such as Romans 15:29. H:For other uses of King James Version, see King James Version (disambiguation). ...

Reduction and omission

In some Northern England dialects of English, the is pronounced as [tə] (with a dental t) or as a glottal stop, usually written in eye dialect as <t>; in some dialects it reduces to nothing. This is known as definite article reduction; see that article for further details. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... The voiceless dental plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... Eye dialect is a common name for the writers practice of using nonstandard (or incorrect) spellings to indicate nonstandard pronunciation in dialogue. ... Definite Article Reduction (DAR) is the term used in recent linguistic work to refer to the use of vowel-less forms of the definite article in northern dialects of England. ...

In informal writing, such as notes or diaries, the definite article and some other particles are often omitted, for example, "Must pick up prescription at pharmacy today." Look up prescription in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Pharmacy (disambiguation). ...

In dialects that do not have /ð/ (voiced dental fricative), the is pronounced with a voiced dental plosive, as in /d̪ə/ or /d̪iː/). The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced dental plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

See also

• A, an
• Article (grammar)
• Definiteness
• Definite description

Look up a in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An article is a word that is next to a noun or any word that modifies a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ... In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). ... A definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of the X where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun that picks out a specific individual or object. ...

References

1. ^ World English. The 500 Most Commonly Used Words in the English Language. Retrieved on 2007-01-14.

2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD (or CE) era. ... January 14 is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• January 10, 2006: 'Netizens decry ‘shame' of new 5,000 won bill' Confusion over lack of the word 'the' in new currency with the phrase 'Bank of Korea' - some people online believed the lack of the word 'the' to be an error, implying that the bank was only one of many.

• Low MH 2005: "The Phenomenon of the Word THE in English - discourse functions and distribution patterns" - a dissertation that surveys the use of the word 'the' in English text.