Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A thousand, especially of dollars.
- pronoun Used to indicate the one being addressed, especially in a literary, liturgical, or devotional context.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To address as “thou”: implying (except when referring to the usage of the Friends) familiarity, wrath, scorn, contempt, etc.
- To use thou, thee, thy, and thine in discourse, as do the Friends.
- A personal pronoun of the second person, in the singular number, nominative case, the possessive case being thy or thine, and the objective thee: plural, ye or you, your, you. See
thine and you. - In ordinary English use the place of thou has been taken by you, which is properly plural, and takes a plural verb. Thou is now little used except archaically, in poetry, provincially, in addressing the Deity, and by the Friends, who usually say not thou but thee, putting a verb in the third person singular with it: as, thee is or is thee?
- Formerly it was used in general address, and often bore special significance, according to circumstances, as noting— equality, familiarity, or intimacy
- superiority on the part of the speaker
- contempt or scorn for the person addressed (see
thou , v.).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To address as
thou , esp. to do so in order to treat with insolent familiarity or contempt. - intransitive verb rare To use the words
thou andthee in discourse after the manner of the Friends. - pronoun The second personal pronoun, in the singular number, denoting the person addressed; thyself; the pronoun which is used in addressing persons in the solemn or poetical style.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A unit of length equal to one-
thousandth of aninch . - pronoun archaic, literary
you singular informal, nominative case - verb transitive To address (a person) using the pronoun
thou , especially as an expression of familiarity or contempt. - verb intransitive To use the word
thou . - noun slang A
thousand , especially a thousanddollars , a thousandpounds sterling , etc.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the cardinal number that is the product of 10 and 100
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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Tell me now, thou of the gray head, of what art _thou_ thinking? '
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2 Various
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With a wild cry she broke from him, and as bitter tears ran down her cheek, she said, "O Kephalos, Kephalos, why hast thou done thus? all my love was thine, and _thou_ hast drawn me into evil deeds."
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"How shouldst thou so utterly desert me, Zorzi -- _thou_, and my people whom I love!"
The Royal Pawn of Venice A Romance of Cyprus Lawrence Turnbull
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Happy ferry-man, thought Grainier, thou aspirest not to fame; thou composest no epithalamiums.
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But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress, whose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?
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And thou, he said, thou gavest me thine oath that thou wouldst bring me in safety to Ehrenfels.
Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine Lewis Spence 1914
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Say, whither art thou leading this glutton, thou wretched swineherd, this plaguy beggar, a kill-joy of the feast?
Book XVII Homer 1909
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But thou art a thing preferred to honour: thou art thyself a fragment torn from God: thou hast a portion of Him within thyself.
LX Epictetus 1909
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Before thou receivest my daughter, and half of my kingdom, said he to him, thou must perform one more heroic deed.
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Wilt thou be quiet, said the wolf, thou wilt waken up the people!
Thumbling 1909
vanishedone commented on the word thou
Thou, WeirdNet, art thinking of thousand.
June 16, 2008
bilby commented on the word thou
Wherefore art 1000, Romeo?
June 16, 2008
seanahan commented on the word thou
Well, I've definitely said, "5 thou" to refer to thousand. Add that to the fact WordNet only contains content words, nouns, verbs, etc., and this makes complete sense.
June 19, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word thou
One of only two(?) minimal pairs contrasting /ð/ and /θ/ initially: /ðaʊ/ "you" ~ /θaʊ/ "thousandth of an inch" (or colloquially "thousand"). The other initial pair is 'thus'; final contrasts occur in 'mouth' (n. and v.) and possibly 'withe'/'with'.
June 10, 2009
reesetee commented on the word thou
Also called the mil; defined as 1/1,000 of an inch (25.4 µm), frequently used to measure the thickness of very thin materials such as film and plastic sheeting.
March 1, 2011
Gammerstang commented on the word thou
pron: this pronoun is still much in use. Farmers in general ‘thou’ their servants; the inferior class (and the lower class of men in general) frequently their wives, and always their children; and the children as invariably ‘thou’ each other. Superiors in general ‘thou’ their inferiors; while inferiors ‘you’ their betters. Equals and intimates of the lower class generally ‘thou’ one another. These distinctions are sometimes the cause of aukwardness: to ‘you’ a man may be making too familiar with him; while to ‘thou’ him might affront him. PROVINCIALISMS OF EAST YORKSHIRE;BY MR. MARSHALL; 1788.
January 12, 2018