then

adv
/ðɛn/UK/ðen/

Etymology

* As a south German surname, from the personal name Thön, a form of Anthony. * Also as a German surname, a variant of Ten, occupational surname for a mintmaster, from obsolete Middle Low German ten, tene (“blank; disk from which a coin is made”), possibly related to Proto-Germanic *tainaz (“metal rod”), or perhaps otherwise from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”). * Also as a German name, from the noun Tenne (“threshing-floor”). * As a Chinese surname, a Romanization of 鄧 /邓 (dèng) (see Deng) and 田 (tián) (see Tian).

  1. inherited from *tóm
  2. inherited from *þan
  3. inherited from *þan
  4. inherited from þonne
  5. inherited from then(ne)

Definitions

  1. At that time.

    • He was happy then.
    • And the Canaanite was then in the land.
  2. Soon afterward.

    • He fixed it, then left.
    • Turn left, then right, then right again, then keep going until you reach the service station.
    • And then came an invitation to tonight's ball.
  3. Next in order of place.

    • There are three green ones, then a blue one.
  4. + 9 more definitions
    1. In addition

      In addition; also; besides.

    2. In that case.

      • If it’s locked, then we’ll need the key.
      • Is it 12 o’clock already? Then it’s time for me to leave.
      • You don’t like potatoes? What do you want me to cook, then?
    3. At the same time

      At the same time; on the other hand.

      • That’s a nice shirt, but then, so is the other one.
      • The forms inheritress and inheritrix are used only in literature, and then but rarely.
    4. Used to contradict an assertion.

      • ‘She says Indian elephants are tidgy little things.’ ‘They're not then.’ Emma was getting heated. ‘They're –’ ‘Emma!’ said Jenny sharply. The child subsided.
    5. Being so at that time.

      • He had met his then girlfriend when he had just started university. The relationship ended unhappily when the girlfriend complained that he never wanted to go out.
      • It all started when Nick Farmer bought George R. R. Martin a drink, but the plot really thickened when the linguist met Martin’s then-assistant Ty Franck.
      • It’s been nearly four years since China put tariffs on American-grown soybeans during a tit-for-tat trade war with then-President Donald Trump – and they remain in place despite the change in administrations.
    6. That time.

      • It will be finished before then.
    7. Obsolete spelling of than.

      • […]his hand, more ſad [i.e., heavy, hard] then lomp of lead,[…]
      • Clow[ne]. O they haue lyud long on the almſbaſket of wordes. I maruaile thy M.hath not eaten thee for a worde, for thou art not ſo long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: Thou art eaſier ſwallowed then a flapdragon.
    8. Misspelling of than.

    9. A surname.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for then. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA