tho

• (when stressed)
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ðəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • (US) IPA^(key): /ðoʊ/
  • Rhymes: -əʊ
• (when unstressed)
  • (West Country) IPA^(key): /ðə/
  • Homophone: the

From Middle English tho, tha, from Old English þā (“the, those”, plural), from Proto-West Germanic *þai, from Proto-Germanic *þai (“those”), from Proto-Indo-European *to-, *só (“that”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian do (“the”, plural). Doublet of they.

tho

1. (obsolete, West Country) The (plural form); those.

tho

1. (obsolete) Those; they.

From Middle English tho, tha, from Old English þā (“then, when”), from Proto-Germanic *þa- (“that”), from Proto-Indo-European *to-, *só (“that”). See also German da (“then, thereupon”).

tho (not comparable)

1. (now dialectal) Then; thereupon.
   • 1481, William Caxton, The History Reynard the Foxː

     Tho went I near and found Master Reynard, that had left that he first read and sang, and began to play his old play.

   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Ianuarye. Ægloga Prima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC:

     Tho to a hill his faynting flocke he ledde.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Tho, her avizing of the vertues rare / Which thereof spoken were, she gan againe / Her to bethink of that mote to her selfe pertaine.

   • 1642, Henry More, Song Soulː

     Tho I gan closely on his person look.

tho

1. (dialectal) When.

Simplified reform spelling. Popular in American English in the earlier 20th century. Like thru, it failed to establish itself fully, but remains in informal contexts or where brevity is needed. Compare tho'.

tho (not comparable)

1. (chiefly US and Philippines, dated or informal, also Internet slang) Alternative spelling of though.
   • 1919 September 6, “Wanted: A Nutrition Laboratory”, in The Literary Digest, volume 62, number 10 (1533 overall), New York, N.Y.; London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, “Science and Invention” section, page 114, column 2:

     The English are told as children that maize is food for pigs, and tho Americans eat maizebread with pleasure and have recently done so to a huge extent in order to make possible exports of wheat to Europe, the English persist in their unfounded prejudice against it.

   • 2009, John Hough, Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg‎^[1], Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 121:

     I wonder now when I will find time to read it but it is a treasure anyway tho heavy in my knapsack, […]

• toh, Toh, hot, OTH, o'th', oth, -oth, HOT

From Proto-Germanic *sa, *sō, *þat.

tho

1. the
   • 1562, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq:

     omnibus vero dictionibus praeponebat articulum tho aut the

     but to all utterances one prefixes the article tho or the

While it is likely that Crimean Gothic retained grammatical gender, de Busbecq's letter does not mention which articles are used with which words, making it impossible to reconstruct their gender.

tho

1. the
   • c. 1449-1455, Reginald Pecock, Represser of over-much weeting of the Clergie

     sithen if tho thre be sufficiently improued , that is to seie , if it be sufficientli proued that tho thre ben noust and vntrewe and badde

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

thô

1. then

• IPA^(key): /θoː/

tho (not comparable)

1. though, however

tho

1. aspirate mutation of to