de of het overwicht?
het overwicht
dominance
noun · /ˈoː.vərˌʋɪxt/
It is “het overwicht”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: overwicht
Forms
- Article
- het overwicht
- Diminutive
- het overwichtje
- Also means
- prevalence, ascendancy, superiority
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het team had een duidelijk overwicht.
The team had a clear dominance.
Zijn argumenten gaven hem het overwicht.
His arguments gave him the upper hand.
Ze streefden naar militair overwicht.
They aimed for military dominance.
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 overwicht” rather than as “overwicht” 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.