An

How to spell an

2 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce an

What does an mean?

1. determinerThe form of the indefinite article used before a word beginning with a vowel sound.

An in a sentence

• She ate an orange before the meeting.

• He waited an hour for the train to arrive.

Where does an come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes straight from Old English an, which simply meant the number 'one'. That same word gave us both the modern numeral 'one' and the indefinite articles 'a' and 'an', because saying 'one apple' gradually softened into 'an apple' in ordinary speech. Over the early medieval period the full form 'an' kept its final 'n' before words beginning with a vowel sound, while the 'n' was dropped before consonant sounds to give the shorter 'a'. This split is purely about ease of pronunciation: the 'n' bridges the gap between two vowels so the words do not run together awkwardly. Because it traces back to 'one', 'an' is one of the oldest and most stable words in the language, and its spelling has barely changed in well over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• an (indefinite article, reduced from Old English an: one)