Word.ws English Dictionary

de

/ˈdɛ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/diː/

de noun: the name of the Cyrillic script letter Д / д. Also the alternative form of dee.

Noun (1)

de (plural des)

  1. The name of the Cyrillic script letter Д / д.

Interjection

  1. A meaningless unstressed syllable used when singing a tune or indicating a rhythm.
    • “Dum de dum, dum de dum”, he hummed as he sauntered down the road.

Preposition

de

  1. (historical) Used in the titles of French nobility; of.
    • Conwoman Jeanne de La Motte stole a 2,800-carat diamond necklace, The Slave's Collar, by convincing the Cardinal de Rohan that Queen Marie-Antoinette wanted it.2009 November 5, Alex von Tunzelmann, “The Affair of the Necklace: nothing to get hot under the collar over”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC...
    • When Prosper Mérimée had next seen Mercedes after Spain, in March 1846, he told the Countess de Montijo that Mercedes "looked less well preserved [and] limped a little."2014, Alina García-Lapuerta, La Belle Créole: The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris, Chicago, I.L.: Chicago Review Press, →ISBN, page 236

Proper noun (1) capitalized: DE

DE

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of Delaware: a state of the United States.

Noun (2) capitalized: DE

DE (countable and uncountable, plural DEs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of desktop environment.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of diatomaceous earth.
  3. (US, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of destroyer escort, a type of warship of the destroyer subtype, also called a frigate.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of differential equation.
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of delayed ejaculation.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: De

De

  1. (historical) A former prefecture of imperial China around Dezhou in northwestern Shandong.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: De

De

  1. A surname from India

Noun (3) capitalized: dE

dE (plural dEs)

  1. dwarf elliptical galaxy
    Synonyms:
    DEG

Also used as

de is also the alternative form of dee.

de is also the pronunciation spelling of the.

de meaning in Kannada

de in Kannada

ದೆ

Examples of de in a sentence

  • If you want to catch the bus, you'd better leave tout de suite!
  • Now orbiting Earth, Gravity Probe B is a technological tour de force.
  • Am văzut un film extrem de interesant. (I saw an extremely interesting movie).

All 40 example sentences with de

Synonyms of de

Forms of de

Noun
pluraldes
pluralDEs
pluraldEs
Verb
third-person singular presentdiz
present participledein
pastdid
past participledyun
alternative formdee
Proper noun
alternative formTe
alternative formTê

Plural of de: des

Origin of de

Borrowed from Russian дэ (dɛ).

Borrowed from French de (“of”).

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 德 (Dé).

Phrases with de

188 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with de

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about de

What does de mean?
De means the name of the Cyrillic script letter Д / д.
What is de in Kannada?
De in Kannada is ದೆ. See De meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is de?
De can be a noun, an interjection, a preposition or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce de?
De is pronounced /ˈdɛ/.
What is the plural of de?
The plural of de is des.

Words near de in the dictionary

  1. ddTTP
  2. DDU
  3. dduk
  4. DDVP
  5. DDx
  6. de
  7. De Aar
  8. De Asis
  9. De Baca
  10. De Baca County
  11. De Bacas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: de (page history and authors); DE (page history and authors); De (page history and authors); dE (page history and authors); de (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “de.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/de. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.