An
article (
abbreviated ) is a
word (or
prefix or
suffix) that is used with a
noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify grammatical
definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the
English language are
the and
a/an, and (in certain contexts)
some. 'An' and 'a' are modern forms of the Old English 'an', which in Anglian dialects was the number 'one' (compare 'on', in Saxon dialects) and survived into Modern Scots as the number 'owan'. Both 'on' (respelled 'one' by the Normans) and 'an' survived into Modern English, with 'one' used as the number and 'an' ('a', before nouns that begin with a consonant sound) as an indefinite article.