de of het harnas?
het harnas
armour
noun
It is “het harnas”. The plural is “de harnassen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: harnas
Forms
- Article
- het harnas
- Plural
- de harnassen
- Diminutive
- het harnasje
- Also means
- protection
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Hij trok zijn mentale harnas aan.
He put on his mental armor.
Ze durfde eindelijk haar harnas af te leggen.
She finally dared to shed her protective shell.
Je jaagt hem zo in het harnas.
You're making him defensive like that.
Why this article
No rule predicts it
This one has to be memorised. No spelling pattern marks it as neuter, which is exactly why it is worth learning as “het harnas” rather than as “harnas” on its own.
The rules that do work
- • Every plural takes “de”, without exception.
- • Every diminutive ending in -je takes “het”, without exception.
- • Nouns ending in -ing, -heid, -tie, -teit or -schap take “de”.
- • Roughly two thirds of all nouns take “de”, so it is the better guess.
Other nouns whose article has to be memorised
Stop guessing de and het
Woordje has a practice mode for exactly this: it shows a noun and asks for the article, and keeps asking until you stop getting it wrong.