de of het waas?
het waas
haze
noun · /ʋaːs/
It is “het waas”. The plural is “de wazen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: waas
Forms
- Article
- het waas
- Plural
- de wazen
- Diminutive
- het waasje
- Also means
- mist, bloom, film
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het waas maakte het uitzicht onduidelijk.
The haze made the view unclear.
Er lag een waas over haar ogen.
There was a haze over her eyes.
Die waas op de spiegel moet weg.
That haze on the mirror must go.
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 waas” rather than as “waas” 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.