Meaning

originFrom Middle English þe, from Old English þē m (“the, that”, demonstrative pronoun), a late variant of sē, the s- (which occurred in the masculine and feminine nominative singular only) having been replaced by the þ- from the oblique stem. replaced words, cognates Originally neutral nominative, in Middle English it superseded all previous Old English nominative forms (sē m, sēo f, þæt n, þā pl);…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0