Not one of all the thousand, but was lock’d.”
Dryden.
The Definite Article the is sometimes applied to Adverbs in the comparative degree, and its effect is to mark the degree the more strongly, and to define it the more precisely: as, “The more I examine it, the better I like it. I like this the least of any.”
SUBSTANTIVE.
A Substantive, or Noun, is the Name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion.
Substantives are of two sorts; Proper, and Common, Names. Proper Names are the names appropriated to individuals; as the names of persons and places: such are George, London. Common Names stand for kinds, containing many sorts; or sorts, containing many individuals under them; as, Animal, Man.
Proper Names being the names of individuals, and therefore of things already as determinate as they can be made, admit not of Articles, or of Plurality of Number; unless by a Figure, or by Accident: as when great Conquerors are called Alexanders; and some great Conqueror An Alexander, or The Alexander of his age; when a Common Name is understood, as The Thames, that is, the River Thames; The George, that is, the Sign of St. George: or when it happens that there are many persons of the same name; as, The two Scipios.
Whatever is spoken of is represented as one, or more, in Number: these two manners of representation in respect of number are called the Singular, and the Plural, Number.
In English, the Substantive Singular is made Plural, for the most part, by adding to it s; or es, where it is necessary for the pronunciation: as, king, kings; fox, foxes; leaf, leaves; in which last, and many others, f is also changed into v, for the sake of an easier pronunciation, and more agreeable sound. Some few Plurals end in en: as, oxen, chicken, children, brethren; and men, women, by changing the a of the Singular into e[4]. This form we have retained from the Teutonic; as likewise the introduction of the e in the former syllable of two of the last instances; weomen, (for so we pronounce it) brethren, from woman, brother[5]: something like which may be noted in some other forms of Plurals; as, mouse, mice; louse, lice; tooth, teeth; foot, feet; goose, geese[6].