tho

• (when stressed)
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ðəʊ/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

  • (US) IPA^(key): /ðoʊ/
  • Rhymes: -əʊ
• (when unstressed)
  • (West Country) IPA^(key): /ðə/
  • Homophone: the

From Middle English tho, tha, from Old English þā (“the, those”, plural), from Proto-Germanic *þai (“those”), from Proto-Indo-European *to-, *só (“that”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian do (“the”, plural).

tho

1. (obsolete, West Country) The (plural form); those.

tho

1. (obsolete) Those; they.

From Middle English tho, tha, from Old English þā (“then, when”), from Proto-Germanic *þa- (“that”), from Proto-Indo-European *to-, *só (“that”). See also German da (“then, thereupon”).

tho (not comparable)

1. (now dialectal) Then; thereupon.
   • 1481, William Caxton, The History Reynard the Foxː

     Tho went I near and found Master Reynard, that had left that he first read and sang, and began to play his old play.

   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Ianuarie. Aegloga Prima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], OCLC 606515406; reprinted as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, The Shepheardes Calender […], London: John C. Nimmo, […], 1890, OCLC 890162479:

     Tho to a hill his faynting flocke he ledde.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     Tho, her avizing of the vertues rare / Which thereof spoken were, she gan againe / Her to bethink of that mote to her selfe pertaine.

   • 1642, Henry More, Song Soulː

     Tho I gan closely on his person look.

tho

1. (dialectal) When.

Mostly found in American English; alteration of though. Compare tho'.

tho (not comparable)

1. (informal, chiefly US) Alternative spelling of though
   • 2009, John Hough, Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg‎, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 121:

     I wonder now when I will find time to read it but it is a treasure anyway tho heavy in my knapsack, …

• -oth, HOT, OTH, hot, o'th', oth

From Proto-Germanic *sa, *sō, *þat.

tho

1. the
   • 1562, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq

     omnibus vero dictionibus praeponebat articulum tho aut the

     but to all utterances one prefixes the article tho or the

While it is likely that Crimean Gothic retained grammatical gender, de Busbecq's letter does not mention which articles are used with which words, making it impossible to reconstruct their gender.

tho

1. the
   • c. 1449-1455, Reginald Pecock, Represser of over-much weeting of the Clergie

     sithen if tho thre be sufficiently improued , that is to seie , if it be sufficientli proued that tho thre ben noust and vntrewe and badde

thô

1. then

• IPA^(key): /θoː/

tho (not comparable)

1. though, however

tho

1. Aspirate mutation of to.