Skip to content

De or het trap?

← Dutch words

de trap

stairs, staircase

/trɑp/

Forms

Singular
de trap
Plural
de trappen
Diminutive
het trapje

Why de?

  • No reliable spelling rule decides this one, so de trap is learned together with the word.
  • Every plural takes de, so it is de trappen whatever the singular takes.
  • Every diminutive takes het: het trapje.

The rules for de and het, with the exceptions

Meaning in English

  1. stairs, staircase
  2. ladder
  3. degree, grade
  4. kick (act of kicking)
  5. bustard (bird of the order Otidiformes)

Remember trap with Spreek

Spreek keeps the Dutch words you meet, article included, reviews them with you and then has you use them in a spoken conversation.

See what Spreek does

FreeiPhoneDownload on the App Store