Thou Definition
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English
Etymology 1
Middle English thou, thow, thu, þou from Old English þū. Akin to Old Saxon & Old Frisian ðū, Old High German dū (German du), Old Norse and Icelandic þú (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian du), Latin tu, Ancient Greek σύ (sý) (Modern Greek εσύ (esý)), Frisian do.
Pronunciation
Pronoun
Wikipedia has an article on: Thouthou (second person singular nominative case, plural ye or you, objective case thee, reflexive thyself, possessive determiner thy (thine before a vowel), possessive pronoun thine)
Usage notes
- Thou is used with the archaic second-person singular of verbs, which usually ends in -est, as in, for example, “Lovest thou me?” Exceptions (forms without s) include: art (of be), hast (of have), shalt (of shall) and wilt (of will).
Derived terms
- thou'rt
- th'art
Translations
singular informal form of "you"
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See also
English personal pronouns| Number | Person | Gender | Subject | Objective | Reflexive | Possessive | Possessive Pronoun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | First | — | I | me | myself | my | mine |
| Second | — | you, thou (archaic) | you, thee (archaic) | yourself, thyself (archaic) theeself (archaic) | your, thy (archaic) | yours, thine (archaic) | |
| Third | Masculine | he | him | himself | his | ||
| Feminine | she | her | herself | her | hers | ||
| Neuter | it | itself | its | its (rare) | |||
| Plural | First | — | we | us | ourselves | our | ours |
| Second | — | you, ye (archaic) | you | yourselves | your | yours | |
| Third | — | they | them | themselves | their | theirs | |
| Indefinite | Third | — | one | oneself | one's | — | |
Verb
thou (third-person singular simple present thous, present participle thouing, simple past and past participle thoued)
- (transitive) To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of familiarity or contempt.
- 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘On the City Wall’, In Black and White, Folio Society 2005, p. 443:
- "One service more, Sahib, since thou hast come so opportunely," said Lalun. "Wilt thou" – it is very nice to be thou-ed by Lalun – "take this old man across the City [...] to the Kumharsen Gate?"
- I thou thee, thou traitor! (Edward Coke to Walter Raleigh)
- Don't thou them as thous thee! (Yorkshire English admonition to overly familiar children)
- 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘On the City Wall’, In Black and White, Folio Society 2005, p. 443:
- (intransitive) To use the word thou.
Translations
to address someone using the pronoun thou
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Etymology 2
Shortened from thousandth.
Pronunciation
Noun
thou (plural thous)
- (dated UK) A unit of length equal to one-thousandth of an inch.
Synonyms
- mil (US)
Etymology 3
Shortened from thousand.
Pronunciation
Noun
thou (plural thou)
- (slang) A thousand, especially a thousand dollars, a thousand pounds sterling, etc.
Statistics
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[source page]
Boring the delrin af bushings At the far end if you count a ding 0 0015 closer to a thou if you average it out Hard to believe
Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:33:50 -0800
... whose forebears had been slaves in Egypt but who endorsed slavery in America. William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist weekly, The Liberator, published a poem that began: O, son of Jacob! Pleadest thou for this? Hast thou forgot the sorrows of thy race?