Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb At that time.
  • adverb Next in time, space, or order; immediately afterward.
  • adverb In addition; moreover; besides.
  • adverb Used after but to qualify or balance a preceding statement.
  • adverb In that case; accordingly.
  • adverb As a consequence; therefore.
  • noun That time or moment.
  • adjective Being so at that time.
  • idiom (then again) From another standpoint; on the other hand.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Then being; being at that time.
  • 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • conjunction obsolete Than.
  • conjunction In that case; in consequence; as a consequence; therefore; for this reason.
  • adverb At that time (referring to a time specified, either past or future).
  • adverb Soon afterward, or immediately; next; afterward.
  • adverb At another time; later; again.
  • adverb [Obs.] By the time that.
  • adverb See under Now, adv.
  • adverb until that time; until the time mentioned.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb temporal location At that time.
  • adverb temporal location Soon afterward.
  • adverb sequence Next in order; in addition.
  • adverb conjunctive In that case.
  • adverb sequence At the same time; on the other hand.
  • adverb obsolete At the time that; when.
  • adverb UK, dialect used to contradict an assertion.
  • adjective being so at that time
  • noun That time
  • conjunction Obsolete spelling of than.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun that time; that moment
  • adverb in that case or as a consequence
  • adverb at that time
  • adverb subsequently or soon afterward (often used as sentence connectors)
  • adjective at a specific prior time

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English thenne; see to- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

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Examples

  • 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

    Evening Buzz: Bailout Rejected 2008

  • 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.

    ‘Look at your neighbor…Does he look suspicious?’ 2008

  • 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?" Ann Althouse 2008

  • 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.

    "Gaycism." Ann Althouse 2007

  • 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.

    Posthuman Blues Mac 2007

  • 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…

    j-gan Diary Entry j-gan 2007

  • 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.

    patch 2006

  • 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.

    Why I Loathe Clinton and the Democrats 2004

  • And then, and _then_, here's the best part, I got an email from Rahab/Christine!

    jaimewolf Diary Entry jaimewolf 2002

  • Little things: packing, final bills, actually moving, then cleaning the place, then… getting a job IMMEDIATELY so I can do it all over again.

    It's Official, I'm Stressing barbylon 2001

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