article

Word family

• articled
  adjective
• articulate
  verbC1
• articulate
  adjectiveC1
• articulation
  nounC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All five words name a piece of writing, but the typical setting and tone differ. An 'article' is a fairly short text published in a newspaper, magazine, or news website — for example, 'an article about local elections'. An 'essay' is more personal or academic, often written by a student or to share an argument, as in 'a school essay on friendship'. A 'feature' is longer and richer in detail, usually highlighting one person, place, or trend, such as 'a magazine feature on Taiwanese street food'. A 'report' focuses on facts and findings, often written for work or research: 'a report on traffic accidents'. A 'post' is the everyday word for something written on a blog or social media, like 'a Facebook post'.

Common collocations

Etymology

The word entered English in the 13th century from Old French 'article', which itself came from Latin 'articulus', a small joint or section — the diminutive of 'artus' meaning 'joint' or 'limb'. The original idea of a 'small connecting part' explains why 'article' came to mean a numbered section of a legal text. From there it stretched to cover separate items in a list, then any single object of a class, and later a self-contained piece of writing in a newspaper. The grammatical sense (a, an, the) developed in late Middle English from medieval Latin grammar terminology.