9 rules to the make sense of the uses of the articles of English
So what does ‘the’ mean? It means something SPECIFIC (both to the mind of the speaker and listener). When the listener knows which one the speaker is taking about, then it becomes specific. It also means something UNIQUE or overly FAMILIAR to us. No wonder people call ‘the’ Definite article. Let’s see an example of when ‘the’ means something specific: The stained glass windows of the church we saw is ethereal. In the above sentence, ‘the’ refers to some ‘SPECIFIC’ windows of a Church of the millions of windows we currently have in this world. By using ‘the’, the speaker makes sure which one he is describing.