The

From Textus Receptus

Current revision

The ðə is a grammatical article in English, denoting person(s) or thing(s) already mentioned, under discussion, implied, or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners or readers. It is the only definite article in English. The is the most commonly used word in the English language, accounting for 7 percent of all words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which merged in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of either gender. It can be used with both singular and plural nouns and with nouns that start with any letter. This is different from many other languages which have different articles for different genders or(and) numbers.

Pronunciation

In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as /ðə/ (with the voiced dental fricative /ð/ followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as /ðiː/ (homophonous with thee) when followed by a vowel sound or used as an emphatic form. In modern American English, however, there is an increasing tendency to limit the usage of the latter pronunciation to emphatic purposes and use the former even before a vowel.

In some Northern England dialects of English, the is pronounced [t̪ə] (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. In dialects that do not have the voiced dental fricative /ð/, the is pronounced with the voiced dental plosive, as in /d̪ə/ or /d̪iː/).