Thou
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
thou¹
- /ðaʊ/
- /ðuː/
Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
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”), dialectal German dau (“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.
pronoun ye · thee · thyself · thy · thine
- Nominative singular of ye (“you”).ye [...] Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall giue thee light.
thou²
- /ðaʊ/ US, UK
Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
From Late Middle English thouen, theu, thew, thou, thowe, thowen, thui, thuy (“to address (a person) with thou, particularly in a contemptuous or polite manner”), from the pronoun thou: see etymology 1 above.
verb thous · thouing · thoued
- 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
- 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.
thou³
- /θaʊ/ US, UK
Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
Clipping of thou(sandth).
noun thous
- 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.
thou⁴
- /θaʊ/ US, UK
Rhymes with -aʊ
Where it comes from
Clipping of thou(sand).
noun thous · thou
- 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?
thou⁵
- /ðəʊ/ UK
- /ðoʊ/ US
Where it comes from
See though.
adverb
- Misspelling of though.though
conjunction
- Misspelling of though.though
Thou⁶
pronoun
- Honorific alternative letter-case form of thou, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context.thou
