▪ I. thou, pers. pron., 2nd sing. nom.
(ðaʊ)
Forms: 1–3 ðu, 1–5 þu, (2–3 tu, tou, -te), 3 (þe, þeou), ðhu, 3–5 þou, 3–6 thu, (4 þouȝ), 4–5 þow, (-tow), 4–6 thow, 4, 6 (9 dial.) th-, th', (5 thowe), 4– thou. (Mod. dial. thau, thaw, thah, tha; theau, theow, thoo, thu; tau, taw, ta, tay; teau, teaw, teu, too, tou, tow; doo, dou, du, etc.: see Eng. Dial. Dict.)
[OE. ðū̆, þū̆; Com. Teut. and Indo-Eur.; = OFris. thū̆ (du), OS. thū̆ (MDu., MLG., LG. du), OHG. dū̆ (MHG., Ger. du), ON. þ{uacu} (Norw., Sw., Da. du), Goth. þu:—OTeut. þū̆ = pre-Teut. tū̆: = L. tu, Ir. tu, Welsh ti, Gr. σύ, Doric τύ, Lith. tu, OSlav. ty, Skr. twa-m. The oblique cases, and the possessive, are formed on a stem þe- = pre-Teut. te-: see thee, thine. The pl. ye, in OE. ᵹé, is from a different root, to which also belonged a dual ᵹit, yit, ‘ye two’, still used after 1200 in ME. The acc. and dat. sing. were levelled in OE. under the dat. form: see thee. The OE. genitive was identical in form with a possessive adj. þ{iacu}n: see thine, thy. The paradigm of thou is therefore as follows:
Old English.
Singular.Dual.Plural.
Nom.þ{uacu}, þuᵹitᵹé, ᵹe, ᵹ{iacu}e
Acc.þec; þē, þeincit; incéowic; éow (iuih, iuh)
Dat.þē, þeincéow
Gen.þininceréower
Poss. Pron.þininceréowerMiddle English.
Nom.þū, þou, þowȝit, ȝetȝe, ȝie, yhe, ye
Dat. Acc.þē, þeeinc, ȝinc, ȝunceow, eou, ou,ow, ȝiu, ȝu, ygh.ou, yhu (etc.)
Gen.þīninker, ȝunker, unkereower, eour, ower, ȝure, ȝour(e
Poss. Pron.þīn, þīinker, ȝunker, unkereower, eour, ower, ȝure, ȝour(eModern English.
Nom.thou[obs.]ye, you
Dat. Acc.thee[obs.]you
Poss. Pron.
absol.thine[obs.]yours
adj.thy[obs.]your.
]
1. The pronoun by which a person (or thing) is addressed, in the nominative singular; the pronoun denoting the person (or thing) spoken to.
Thou and its cases thee, thine, thy, were in OE. used in ordinary speech; in ME. they were gradually superseded by the plural ye, you, your, yours, in addressing a superior and (later) an equal, but were long retained in addressing an inferior. Long retained by Quakers in addressing a single person, though now less general; still in various dialects used by parents to children, and familiarly between equals, esp. intimates; in other cases considered as rude. In general English used in addressing God or Christ, also in homiletic language, and in poetry, apostrophe, and elevated prose. For details of dialect use, see Wright, Eng. Dial. Dict., Thou II, Eng. Dial. Gram. §404.
In ME. freq. combined with its verb when this precedes, the þ being then absorbed in the preceding t, as artow = art thou, hastow = hast thou. The initial þ also became t after s, t, or d, as hauis tu = hast thou, þat tu, and tu: see T 8.
| Beowulf 507 Eart þu se Beowulf? c 825 Vesp. Psalter ix. 15 Ðu uphest mec of ᵹeatum deaðes. c 1205 Lay. 690 Niðing þou ært al dead..Bote þu min lare do. Ibid. 2978 Þeou [c 1275 þou] ært leouere þene mi lif. a 1225 Ancr. R. 240 Þench ec hwat tu owust God, uor his god deden. a 1240 Ureisun in Cott. Hom. 199 So þu dest and so þu schalt. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 361 For ðhu min bode-word haues broken, ðhu salt ben ut in sorȝe luken, In swinc ðu salt tilien ði mete. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 6371 Þou ne ssalt of þin liflode neuere carie noȝt. a 1300 Cursor M. 19585 (Edin.) Hauis tu [v.rr. þu, þou] na parte..here. Ibid. 1253 (Gött.) In þat way sal yu [Cott. þou] find forsoth Þi moþer. Ibid. 8306 (Fairf.) Werrour artow [Cott. art þow] gode in fiȝt. c 1391 Chaucer Astrol. i. §13 Thanne hastow a brod Rewle. c 1440 Pallad. on Husb. i. 42 The better may thowe with that water holde. 1535 Coverdale Ps. lxiv. [lxv.] 1 Thou, O God, art praysed in Sion. 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. i. v. 9 Good thou, saue mee a piece of Marchpane. 1597 ― 2 Hen. IV, ii. ii. 17 How many paire of Silk stockings y{supu} haste. 1671 H. M. tr. Erasm. Colloq. 326 Why shouldest thou do so, seeing how thou was not far from thine own shore? 1715–20 Pope Iliad xii. 69 Oh thou! bold leader of the Trojan bands, And you, confederate chiefs from foreign lands! 1741 Richardson Pamela II. 273, I dare say thou'lt set the good Work forward. a 1835 Mrs. Hemans Graves of Househ. viii, Alas, for love! if thou wert all, And nought beyond, O Earth. 1872 Tennyson Gareth & Lynette 1210 Thou—Lancelot!—thine the hand That threw me? |
| Dialectal. 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. July 33 Syker, thous but a laesie loord. 1607 Beaumont Woman Hater iii. i, Heres ta, and tha [Hearest thou, if thou] wants lodging, take my house, 'tis big enough. 1802 R. Anderson Cumberld. Ball., Sally Gray iv, Had tou seen her at kurk, man, last Sunday, Tou couldn't ha'e thought o' the text. 1861 E. Waugh Birtle Carter's T. 32 Well neaw, mind ta does do. 1876 Whitby Gloss. 171/2 If thoo will gan, sithence be 't. 1886 Hall Caine Son of Hagar i. i, What sayst tha, Reuben? |
b. Used in apposition to and preceding a n. in the vocative: in reproach or contempt often emphasized by being placed or repeated after the n.
| c 888 K. ælfred Boeth. xxvii. §2 Ic asciᵹe ðe, þu Boetius. 13.. Cursor M. 13632 (Gött.) ‘Hald ȝe to him’, said þai, ‘þu caitiue’. c 1350 Will. Palerne 312 A! gracious gode god! þouȝ grettest of alle! c 1425 ? Lydg. Assembly of Gods 1394 ‘What’ seyde Ryghtwysnes, ‘thow olde dotyng foole’. c 1485 Digby Myst. iii. 1399 Loke þat we have drynke, boy þou. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. v. i. 177 Thow wall, o wall, o sweet and louely wall. 1601 ― Jul. C. iv. iii. 301 Sleepe againe Lucius: Sirra Claudio, Fellow, Thou: Awake. 1610 ― Temp. iii. ii. 52 Thou lyest, thou iesting Monkey thou. 1756 Home Douglas iii. ii, Thou riddler, speak Direct and clear. 1820 Wordsw. Ch. San Salvador 1 Thou sacred Pile! whose turrets rise..Guarded by lone San Salvador. 1850 (Westmorland), Get oop, thoo lile ligabed! |
2. As n. a. The person or ‘self’ of the individual addressed. Cf. thee pron. 4 a.
| 1693 Dryden Persius' Sat. i. 249 Thou, if there be a Thou, in this base Town, Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. ii. ix, Because the Thou (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honoured, nourished, soft-bedded. |
b. The word itself: see also thee pron. 4 b.
| 1655 Baxter Quaker Catech. 27 The Quakers..call out for a formal Righteousnesse.., consisting in such things as these following, to wit,..That we say (Thou) and no (You) to him we speak to. 1694 Penn in G. Fox's Jrnl. (1827) I. Pref. 15 They also used the plain language of Thou and Thee to a single person. 1827 Hare Guesses (1859) 119 When you came into use among the higher classes, the lower were still addrest with thou. 1905 Daily Chron. 16 Feb. 5/1 Among the concessions..is that the men shall be addressed in the second person plural, not as is usual throughout Russia, in the case of the working classes, in the singular ‘thou’ (a mark of inferiority). |
▪ II. thou, v.
(ðaʊ)
[f. thou pron.]
To use the pronoun ‘thou’ to a person: familiarly, to an inferior, in contempt or insult, or as done (formerly universally, now less frequently) on principle by Quakers: cf. note to thou pers. pron. 1. Often in phr. to thou and thee, to thee and thou: cf. also thee v.2 a. trans. b. intr. (or absol.). Hence thouing vbl. n. (Cf. thowte v.)
| a. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 492/1 Thowtyn, or seyn thow to a mann (A. thowyn or sey þu), tuo. 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 618/7 Tuo, to thuy. c 1450 in Aungier Syon (1840) 297 None of hyghenesse schal thou another in spekynge. c 1530 Hickscorner (1905) 149 Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin I tell thee! 1564–78 W. Bullein Dial. agst. Pest. (1888) 5 He thous not God, but you[s] hym. 1603 Coke in Hargrave State Trials (1776) I. 216 All that Lord Cobham did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou Traitor! 1664 Pepys Diary 11 Jan., She [a Quakeress] thou'd him [the king] all along. 1682 R. Ware Foxes & Firebrands ii. 103 He..Quaker-like, thou'd and thee'd Oliver. 1805 tr. Lafontaine's Hermann & Emilia I. 110 When she heard the young people thou and thee each other. 1888 Liversedge, Yorks. Dial., Shoo said, Art thah goin'? Yo' knaw shoo al'us thah's ma. We're owd mates. |
| b. 1679 Establ. Test 23 A..Iesuit takes a Lodging at a Quakers, can thou and thee, and yea and nay, as well as the best of them. 1697 State Philadelph. Soc. 2 They were not so silly as to place Religion in Thouing and Theeing. 1883 Globe 24 Mar. 1/5 In this country ‘thouing’ is a lost art. |
▪ III. thou, n.
(θaʊ)
Also thou. (with point), thou'.
A colloquial and familiar shortening of the word thousand; esp. a thousand pounds sterling; a thousandth of an inch; (U.S.) a thousand dollars; also in other senses: see quots.
| 1867 ‘Ouida’ Under Two Flags I. vi. 113 Losing {oqq}long odds in thou’{cqq} over the Oaks. 1869 tr. Sue's Myst. Paris i. xxvi, The annual amount of his betting-book reached to two or three ‘thous’. 1897 Speaker 13 Nov. 531 The writer did not demean himself by fixing his price at so much ‘per thou’. 1899 Daily News 23 Feb. 6/2 Fancy Wellington and Nelson coaxed for copy at the rate, say, of five hundred pounds a ‘thou’. 1902 Westm. Gaz. 30 June 3/3 In engineering we divide the inch into one thousand parts, and the expression of dimensions in ‘thous’, as they are called in workshops, is far more convenient than the expression of the same dimensions in parts of millimètres. 1924 Galsworthy White Monkey iii. ix. 276 If he did take a few thou. under the rose, he took 'em off the Huns. 1934 Practical Motorist 19 May 94/2 The width of the gap..should not be more than 3 to 5 ‘thous’. 1952 M. Tripp Faith is Windsock xi. 173 We're below ten thou..; you can take off your oxygen masks. 1965 New Yorker 20 Feb. 34/3 The gesture cost me a cool ten thou, but I didn't begrudge it. 1975 Hi-Fi Answers Feb. 36/1 The AT21X carries an elliptical stylus of 0·3 × 0·7 thou. dimensions. |
▪ IV. thou, þou, thouch(t
obs. forms of though.