definite article
1 used to refer to sb/sth that has already been mentioned or is easily understood:
There were three questions. The first two were relatively easy but the third one was hard. * There was an accident here yesterday. A car hit a tree and the driver was killed. * The heat was getting to be too much for me. * The nights are getting longer.
2 used to refer to sb/sth that is the only, normal or obvious one of their kind:
the Mona Lisa * the Nile * the Queen * What's the matter? * The phone rang. * I patted her on the back. * How's the (= your) baby?
3 used when explaining which person or thing you mean:
the house at the end of the street * The people I met there were very friendly. * It was the best day of my life. * You're the third person to ask me that. * Friday the thirteenth * Alexander the Great
4 used to refer to a thing in general rather than a particular example:
He taught himself to play the violin. * The dolphin is an intelligent animal. * They placed the African elephant on their endangered list. * I heard it on the radio. * I'm usually out during the day.
5 used with adjectives to refer to a thing or a group of people described by the adjective:
With him, you should always expect the unexpected. * the unemployed / the elderly / the French
6 used before the plural of sb's last name to refer to a whole family or a married couple:
Don't forget to invite the Jordans.
7 enough of sth for a particular purpose:
I wanted it but I didn't have the money.
8 used with a unit of measurement to mean 'every':
My car does forty miles to the gallon. * You get paid by the hour.
9 used with a unit of time to mean 'the present':
Why not have the dish of the day? * She's flavour of the month with him.
10 (spoken) used, stressing the, to show that the person or thing referred to is famous or important:
Sheryl Crow? Not the Sheryl Crow? * At that time London was the place to be.
IDIOMS
the more, less, etc...., the more, less, etc.... used to show that two things change to the same degree:
The more she thought about it, the more depressed she became. * The less said about the whole thing, the happier I'll be.
Rate this entry
About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for the is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does the appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — the appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
