the

/ðə/ (fraco, ou antes de consoante); /ðiː/ (enfático, ou antes de vogal)

//ðə/ (fraco, ou antes de consoante); /ðiː/ (enfático, ou antes de vogal)/ article

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“the” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #93) as an article. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#93
frequency rank, Portuguese
917
“T” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - o (artigo definido masculino singular)

Corpus desk

Index PT-the · the · Portuguese

the · rank #93 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #93
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 917
  • PHOTO-FINISH nada

Nearest frequency peer: nada (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Vizinhos de frequência do confusável “the”

Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo

corpus weight

What this shows As barras situam “the” face aos lemas portugueses mais próximos por rank, não um reprint da secretária de confusáveis.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

the vs to
33% similar
the vs tu
33% similar
the vs ti
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for the
PropertyValue
Headwordthe
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechArticle
IPA/ðə/ (fraco, ou antes de consoante); /ðiː/ (enfático, ou antes de vogal)
Letters3
Frequency rank#93
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “the”

A frequência vai do punhado de palavras do dia a dia (esquerda) à cauda longa quase nunca usada (direita).thecai aqui:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

A escala é logarítmica (cada marca ≈ 10× mais rara). Na mesma faixa de raridade aparecem “nada” (#92), “ver” (#94), “casa” (#91). Entre 917 lemas com “T”, “the” fica em #93. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for the is neighbouring look-alikes ("to", "tu", …), not just typos; it is anarticle pronounced /ðə/ (fraco, ou antes de consoante); /ðiː/ (enfático, ou antes de vogal). Frequency #93 among 917 “T” headwords. 4 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for the, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "to", "tu", "ti", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Portuguese form is the, spelled T-H-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    o (artigo definido masculino singular)
  2. 2
    a (artigo definido feminino singular)
  3. 3
    os
  4. 4
    as

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how the appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. The male golden fish.
  2. The woman behind you.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "the"?
"the" is spelled T-H-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ðə/ (fraco, ou antes de consoante); /ðiː/ (enfático, ou antes de vogal).
What does "the" mean?
As an article, "the" means: o (artigo definido masculino singular)
What words are commonly confused with "the"?
"the" is commonly confused with "to", "tu", "ti". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "the"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "the" is /ðə/ (fraco, ou antes de consoante); /ðiː/ (enfático, ou antes de vogal). Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "the" come from?
"the" is a Portuguese word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar Portuguese words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "the", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Portuguese headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

ver#94bom#96ano#99vez#102

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list