Word.ws English Dictionary

then

UK/ðɛn//ðɪn/

then adverb: at that time. Also the obsolete spelling of than.

Adverb

then (not comparable)

  1. At that time.
    • He was happy then.
    • And the Canaanite was then in the land.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 12:6
  2. Soon afterward.
    • He fixed it, then left.
    • Turn left, then right, then right again, then keep going until you reach the service station.
    Synonyms:
    and then, and so, subsequently, so
  3. (sequence) Next in order of place.
    • There are three green ones, then a blue one.
    • Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
  4. In addition; also; besides.
    • Another legend says that now and again in the world's history a monarch appears who conquers and rules every nation under the sun. […] Then many of the Siamese believe that the animal is inhabited by the soul of some great man of the past […]1908, E Young, “White elephants” (chapter 17), in Peeps at Many Lands: Siam, London: Adam and Charles Black, page 75
  5. (conjunctive) 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.
    Synonyms:
    accordingly
  6. (sequence) 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.
    Synonyms:
    concurrently
  7. (UK, dialectal, affirmation) 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.2001, Eric Malpass, At the Height of the Moon, page 28

Adjective

then (not comparable)

  1. (attributive) 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.2011, Alessandra Lemma, Mary Target, Peter Fonagy, Brief Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy: A Clinician's Guide, page 124
    • 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.2019 December 22, Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Farivar, “Nick Farmer knows dozens of languages, so he invented one for The Expanse”, in Ars Technica, archived from the original on 25 Feb 2021

Noun

  1. That time.
    • It will be finished before then.

Proper noun capitalized: Then

Then (plural Thens)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

then is also the obsolete spelling of than.

then is also the misspelling of than.

then meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

then in Hindi

at that time
तब tab
soon afterward
फिर phir, पश्चात paścāt, उपरांत uprānt
next in order
तत्पश्चात् tatpaścāt
in that case
तो to

then in Urdu

at that time
تب tab
soon afterward
پھر phir
in that case
تو to

then in Bengali

at that time
তখন tokhon
next in order
এরপর eropor, তারপর taropor

then in Telugu

at that time
అప్పుడు appuḍu
More languagesFewer languages
then in Malayalam
പിന്നെ pinne, എങ്കിൽ eṅkil
then in Punjabi
ਤਦ tad
then in Assamese
তেতিয়া tetia, তাৰ পাছত tar pasot, তেনেহ’লে tenehöle, তেন্তে tente
then in Pashto
بيا byâ
then in Arabic
آنَذَاكَ ʔānaḏāka, حِينَئِذٍ ḥīnaʔiḏin, ثُمَّ ṯumma, إِذًا ʔiḏan
then in Malay
pada masa yang sama, tidak lama kemudian, selepas itu, oleh sebab yang demikian
then in Indonesian
saat itu, lalu
then in Persian
پس pas, سپس sepas, بعد ba'd
then in Thai
ตอนนั้น dtɔɔn-nán, แล้วก็ lɛ́ɛo-gɔ̂ɔ
then in Vietnamese
khi ấy, khi đó, lúc đó, lúc ấy

Examples of then in a sentence

  • And then came an invitation to tonight's ball.
  • You don’t like potatoes? What do you want me to cook, then?
  • But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
  • First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:24:
  • Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
  • Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16.2013 July 19, Peter Wilby, “Finland spreads word on schools”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 30:

All 40 example sentences with then

Synonyms of then

5 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of then

Forms of then

Adverb
alternative formden
Proper noun
pluralThens

Origin of then

From Middle English then(ne), than(ne), from Old English þonne, þanne, þænne (“then, at that time”), from Proto-West Germanic *þan, from Proto-Germanic *þan (“at that (time), then”), from earlier *þam, from Proto-Indo-European *tóm, accusative masculine of *só (“demonstrative pronoun, that”). Cognate with Dutch dan (“then”), German dann (“then”), Swedish då (“then”), Icelandic þá (“then”). Doublet of than.

* 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).

Words formed from then

Phrases with then

Words that rhyme with then

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about then

What does then mean?
Then means at that time.
What is then in Hindi?
Then in Hindi is तब (tab), फिर (phir), पश्चात (paścāt). See Then meaning in Hindi.
How do you use then in a sentence?
And then came an invitation to tonight's ball.
What part of speech is then?
Then can be an adverb, an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce then?
Then is pronounced /ðɛn/ (UK).

Words near then in the dictionary

  1. themself
  2. themselfs
  3. themselues
  4. themselves
  5. themun
  6. then
  7. then again
  8. then and in that event
  9. then and now
  10. then and there
  11. then-

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: then (page history and authors); Then (page history and authors). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-then.ogg.

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