Definition of "article" []

• An individual thing or element of a class; a particular object or item: an article of clothing; articles of food. (noun)
• A particular section or item of a series in a written document, as in a contract, constitution, or treaty. (noun)
• A nonfictional literary composition that forms an independent part of a publication, as of a newspaper or magazine. (noun)
• Grammar The part of speech used to indicate nouns and to specify their application. (noun)
• Grammar Any of the words belonging to this part of speech. In English, the indefinite articles are a and an and the definite article is the. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "An article is placed before a substantive to limit or determine its meaning; the articles are _a_, _an_, and _the_; _a_ or _an_ is called the _indefinite article_, because it does not point out any particular object: _the_ is called the _definite article_ because it determines what particular object is meant."
• "The Berlin article is about how liberal (and the best among us!) wind up illiberal."
• "The title article calls for “retrenchment” in the “humanitarian missions” abroad that are consuming the country’s wealth, so as to arrest the American decline that is a major theme of international affairs discourse, usually accompanied by the corollary that power is shifting to the East, to China and maybe India."