de of het houweel?
het houweel
pickaxe
noun
It is “het houweel”. The plural is “de houwelen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: houweel
Forms
- Article
- het houweel
- Plural
- de houwelen
- Diminutive
- het houweeltje
- Also means
- mattock
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het houweel ligt naast de schop.
The pickaxe lies next to the shovel.
Met het houweel hakte hij de rots kapot.
With the pickaxe he broke the rock.
Kun je me het houweel aangeven?
Can you hand me the pickaxe?
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 houweel” rather than as “houweel” 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.