thou
thou Lexical Profile
thou Game Scores & Validity
• pronoun
The archaic or dialectal second-person singular subject pronoun, equivalent to 'you' when addressing a single person.
"Wherefore art thou standing alone in the courtyard at this late hour?"
• noun
A thousand, especially a thousand dollars or pounds, or one thousandth of an inch in engineering and machining.
"The machinist adjusted the lathe by a couple of thou to achieve the exact tolerance."
• verb
To address someone using the familiar pronoun 'thou', historically as a mark of either close intimacy or contemptuous superiority.
"During the seventeenth-century trial, the prosecutor insulted the defendant by thouing him before the court."
Word Nuance & Usage
Historically, 'thou' was the informal and familiar singular subject pronoun (like French 'tu'), whereas 'ye' and 'you' were plural or formal; today, however, 'thou' is often mistakenly perceived as formal because of its survival in religious and classical texts. Grammatically, 'thou' is strictly a subject pronoun (as in 'thou art'), while 'thee' is the corresponding object pronoun.
• Rhymes for thou
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English 'þū', inherited from Proto-Germanic '*þū' and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European '*túh₂', making it a direct cognate of Latin 'tū', German 'du', and Sanskrit 'tvam'.