Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. At that time: I was still in school then. Come at noon; I'll be ready then.
- adv. Next in time, space, or order; immediately afterward: watched the late movie and then went to bed.
- adv. In addition; moreover; besides: It costs $20, and then there's the sales tax to pay.
- adv. Used after but to qualify or balance a preceding statement: The star was nervous, but then who isn't on the first night of a new play.
- adv. In that case; accordingly: If traffic is heavy, then allow extra time.
- adv. As a consequence; therefore: The case, then, is closed.
- n. That time or moment: The bus leaves at four; until then let's walk.
- adj. Being so at that time: the then chairman of the board.
- idiom. then again From another standpoint; on the other hand: I need a vacation. Then again, so do my coworkers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- At that time: referring to a time specified, either past or future.
- Afterward; next in order; soon afterward or immediately.
- At another time: as, now and then, at one time and another.
- By the time when or that: then in this phrase having the force of a relative.
- In that case; in consequence; therefore; for this reason.
- Then is often used in offering a substitute for a word or statement rejected.
- Than. See than.
- Synonyms Wherefore, Accordingly, etc. See therefore.
- Then being; being at that time.
Wiktionary
- adv. temporal location At that time.
- adv. temporal location Soon afterward.
- adv. sequence Next in order; in addition.
- adv. conjunctive In that case.
- adv. sequence At the same time; on the other hand.
- adv. obsolete At the time that; when.
- adv. UK, dialect used to contradict an assertion.
- adj. being so at that time
- n. That time
- conj. Obsolete spelling of than.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adv. At that time (referring to a time specified, either past or future).
- adv. Soon afterward, or immediately; next; afterward.
- adv. At another time; later; again.
- conj. obsolete Than.
- conj. In that case; in consequence; as a consequence; therefore; for this reason.
WordNet 3.0
- n. that time; that moment
- adv. in that case or as a consequence
- adv. at that time
- adv. subsequently or soon afterward (often used as sentence connectors)
- adj. at a specific prior time
Etymologies
- From Middle English then(ne), than(ne), from Old English þonne, þanne, þænne ("then, at that time"), from Proto-Germanic *þan-, *þana- (“at that (time), then”), from Proto-Indo-European *to- (“demonstrative pronoun”). Cognate with Dutch dan ("then"), German dann ("then"), Icelandic þá ("then"). Related to than. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English thenne; see to- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“If McCain wins and then bombs, *then* Hillary becomes a formidable candidate again.”
"The question is, will Mrs. Clinton fight Ms. Palin to help her former rival, Mr. Obama?"
“And then the whole blame game thing just cracks me up they are ridiculous..then they are gona take off a few days and meet again on Thurs…so they will all be vacationing in Marthas Vineyard while the country falls apart. mario de la ossa”
“I had literally sat down to my first interview, when patchy and intermittent phone calls started coming in, first from our base in London, then from HQ in Atlanta: a plane had crashed into the WTC….it may have been an accident…still checking…..then a second plane…..and suddenly it was all systems go.”
“But he was cheating on his wife with the secretary whom he then threatened when she tried to break it off and *then* he tried to cut a deal with the school board essentially offering to *not* drag people's reputations through the mud if they gave him a free pass.”
“Tell you what, Mac: when he learns to spell your last name correctly, perhaps _then_ we can contemplate placing the fate of the world in his hands, but not before then.”
“I was sort of walking past Cathay with my mind kind of blank apart for “argh parkmall =/= parklane” and then I looked at her because she looked kind of pretty and then I noticed she was looking at me, and then I realized she looked kind of familiar, and then ”
“I used to get up at 4am do 2 hours of pilates, then go to work 60 hours a week..then record in the evenings..then ride a bike.”
“They need to build that party a little more, win some more local elections, get a supply of candidates and then run them for Congress, etc with experience and records to point to, and a broader support base, and *then* they will be credible on the national stage.”
“And then, and _then_, here's the best part, I got an email from Rahab/Christine!”
“Little things: packing, final bills, actually moving, then cleaning the place, then getting a job IMMEDIATELY so I can do it all over again.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘then’.
-
RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
-
EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
about, above, across, after, afterwards, again, against, all, almost, alone, along, already and 291 more...
-
EN - pronunciation fun
All words of the poem
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse <...abyss, ache, actual, advice, aerie, age, ague, aisles, alas, alien, alive, allowed and 406 more...
-
Time
clock, forever, never, ever, ago, when, then, now, past, present, future, timeline and 119 more...
-
Signposting phrases
to kick off, first, then, so, kick off, let's, let's begin, moving on, as you can see, that conclude, next, after that and 5 more...
-
Transitional and otherwise
then, consequently, thus, hence, so, ergo, wherefore, henceforward, to that end, to this end, accordingly, as a result and 34 more...
-
Result
hence, therefore, accordingly, consequently, thus, thereupon, as a result, in consequence, subsequently, after all, all things consid..., briefly and 22 more...
-
agreement
in the first place, not only ... but ..., as a matter of fact, in like manner, in addition, coupled with, in the same fashi..., first, second, third, in the light of, not to mention, to say nothing of, equally important and 22 more...
-
afters
aftermath, after-tax, aftertaste, afterworld, afterword, after hours, after glow, after-hours, after-shave, after the fact, after-wit, afternoon and 44 more...
-
hard to sense
somewhat, somewhere, elsewhere, whereby, likewise, spite, ever, along, otherwise, whatever, whichever, hitherto and 116 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
-
aparrish's Words
the, this, and, a, that, i, me, you, him, her, she, he and 96 more...
-
The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
-
US - national anthem vocabulary
All words and phrases (except the most common articles and prepositions)
For a word frequency analysis see:
air, band, foe, banner, battle, battle's~confusion, beam, blest, blood, blow, bomb, brave and 174 more... -
Theme Prompts
There's a fiction meme (mostly on Livejournal) where writers use words as a prompt for a short story snippet. I've been collecting the words that show up on these lists as prompts for creative writ...
white, black, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet, queen, king, prince and 407 more...
-
words misused at work
words people use incorrectly or just misspell
stanchion, butte, peak, form, quiescent, pique, be, cellophane, there, they're, their, cannot and 16 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for then.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.