old or quaintly archaic way of writing
the, in which the
-y- is a 16c. graphic alteration of
þ, an O.E. character (generally called "thorn," originally a Gmc. rune; see
th-) that represented the "hard"
-th- sound at the beginning of
the. Early printers, whose types were founded on the continent, did not have a
þ, so they substituted
y as the letter that looked most like it. But in such usages it was not pronounced "y."
Ye for
the (and
yt for
that) continued in manuscripts through 18c. Revived 19c. as a deliberate antiquarianism; the
Ye Olde _____ construction was being mocked by 1896.