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thou

pron
/ðaʊ//θaʊ/US/ðəʊ/UK/ðoʊ/US

Etymology

From Middle English thou, tho, thogh, thoue, thouȝ, thow, thowe, tou, towe, thu, thue, thugh, tu, you (Northern England), ðhu, þeou, þeu, þou (the latter three early Southwest England), from Old English þū, from Proto-West Germanic *þū, from Proto-Germanic *þū (“you (singular), thou”), from Proto-Indo-European *túh₂ (“you, thou”). cognates and usage evolution The English word is cognate with Saterland Frisian du (“thou”), West Frisian do (“thou”), dialectal Dutch du, dou, douw (“thou”), Limburgish doe (“thou”), Low German du (“thou”), German du (“thou”), Danish du (“thou”), Swedish du (“thou”), Norwegian Nynorsk du (“thou”), Faroese tú (“thou”), Icelandic þú (“thou”), Gothic 𐌸𐌿 (þu, “thou”), Latin tu, Ancient Greek σύ (sú) (Doric Ancient Greek τύ (tú), Greek εσύ (esý)), Irish tú, Lithuanian tu, Old Church Slavonic тꙑ (ty), Welsh ti, Armenian դու (du), Albanian ti, Persian تو (to), Gujarati તું (tũ), Hindi तू (tū). The informality of thou and its replacement by ye in formal situations date only to the 14th century and come from French influence, since French (as many European languages, but not Old English) uses the second-person plural (vous) instead of the second-person singular (tu) as a mark of politeness or respect.

  1. derived from *túh₂✻ — “you, thou”
  2. inherited from *þū✻ — “you (singular), thou”
  3. inherited from *þū✻
  4. inherited from þū
  5. inherited from thou

Definitions

  1. Nominative singular of ye (“you”).

    • [...] Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall giue thee light.
    • Art thou in earnest about thy soul? and canst thou tell the Searcher of Hearts, Thou, O God, art the thing that I long for? Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I would love thee?
    • Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion!

  2. To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of contempt or…

    To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of contempt or familiarity.

    • Don’t thou them as thous thee! – a Yorkshire English admonition to overly familiar children

  3. To use the word thou.

    • The hardcore role-players will wake up one day feeling, like a dead weight on their chest, the strain of endless texting in Renaissance Faire English—yet dutifully go on theeing and thouing all the same.
  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. A unit of length equal to one thousandth of an inch (25.4 µm).

      • We just wanted to take off a few thou, which we easily did with fine sandpaper.
      • But to continue, "At Horwich they had gone all scientific, and talked in 'thous.,' though apparently some of their work was to the nearest half-inch. […]."

    2. A thousand, especially a thousand of some currency (dollars, pounds sterling, etc.).

      • Whoa there, big spender — that'll cost you a few thou. Are you sure you can afford it?
      • Butch [Cassidy] gave him 3 thous in cash 1 thous for the lawyer another thous if the lawyer wins & 1 thous for Tom O'Day.
      • He has a few thou in the account, enough to make your everyday living expenses, not enough to keep current with the bigger bills.

    3. Misspelling of though.

    4. Honorific alternative letter-case form of thou, sometimes used when referring to God or…

      Honorific alternative letter-case form of thou, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for thou. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA