article

EN
noun

🇺🇸

/ˈɑːr.tɪ.kəl/

🇺🇸

/ˈɑːr.tɪ.kəl/

🇬🇧

/ˈɑːr.tɪ.kəl/

🇬🇧

/ˈɑːr.tɪ.kəl/

Word Forms

Plural

articles

Description

An article is a short piece of writing—often published in a newspaper, magazine, or website—that informs, explains, or discusses a specific topic. It can also refer to one of the three small words ('a', 'an', 'the') used before nouns to signal whether something is general or specific—like saying 'a cat' (any cat) vs. 'the cat' (that particular cat).

Examples

She wrote an insightful article about climate change for the science magazine.

The definite article 'the' is used before nouns that are already known to the listener.

I found a fascinating article on artificial intelligence in last week's journal.

Every English sentence with a singular countable noun usually needs an article: 'a book', 'an idea', or 'the answer'.

The newspaper published ten new articles this morning, including one on local education reform.

Root

articulare

Comes from the Latin verb 'articulare', meaning 'to divide into distinct parts' or 'to utter distinctly'. It derives from 'articulus' (a small joint or part), reflecting segmentation, clarity, and grammatical units. Examples include article, articulate, articulation, disarticulate.