1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Article

ARTICLE (from Lat. articulus, a joint), a term primarily for that which connects two parts together, and so transferred to the parts thus joined; thus the word is used of the separate clauses or heads in contracts, treaties or statutes and the like; of a literary composition on some specific subject in a periodical; or of particular commodities, as in “articles of trade and commerce.” It appears also in the phrase “in the article of death” to translate in articulo mortis, at the moment of death. In grammar the term is used of the adjectives which state the extension of a substantive, i.e. the number of individuals to which a name applies; the indefinite article denoting one or any of a particular class, the definite denoting a particular member of a class.