the

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

See Thee. obsolete Geoffrey Chaucer John Milton

Origin: AS. ðē, a later form for earlier nom. sing. masc. sē, formed under the influence of the oblique cases. See That, pron.

A word placed before nouns to limit or individualize their meaning.

☞ The was originally a demonstrative pronoun, being a weakened form of that. When placed before adjectives and participles, it converts them into abstract nouns; as, the sublime and the beautiful. Edmund Burke The is used regularly before many proper names, as of rivers, oceans, ships, etc.; as, the Nile, the Atlantic, the Great Eastern, the West Indies, The Hague. The with an epithet or ordinal number often follows a proper name; as, Alexander the Great; Napoleon the Third. The may be employed to individualize a particular kind or species; as, the grasshopper shall be a burden. Eccl. xii. 5.

Origin: AS. ðē, ðȳ, instrumental case of sē, seó, ðæt, the definite article. See 2d The.

By that; by how much; by so much; on that account; — used before comparatives; as, the longer we continue in sin, the more difficult it is to reform. “Yet not the more cease I.” John Milton

So much the rather thou, Celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate.— John Milton

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54