Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To have or formulate in the mind.
  • intransitive verb To reason about or reflect on; ponder.
  • intransitive verb To decide by reasoning, reflection, or pondering.
  • intransitive verb To judge or regard; look upon.
  • intransitive verb To believe; suppose.
  • intransitive verb To expect; hope.
  • intransitive verb To intend.
  • intransitive verb To call to mind; remember.
  • intransitive verb To visualize; imagine.
  • intransitive verb To devise or evolve; invent.
  • intransitive verb To bring into a given condition by mental preoccupation.
  • intransitive verb To concentrate one's thoughts on; keep as a point of focus.
  • intransitive verb To exercise the power of reason, as by conceiving ideas, drawing inferences, and using judgment.
  • intransitive verb To consider or weigh an idea.
  • intransitive verb To bring a thought to mind by using the imagination.
  • intransitive verb To recall a thought or an image to mind.
  • intransitive verb To have a belief, supposition, or opinion.
  • intransitive verb To have care or consideration.
  • intransitive verb To use the mind in a certain way.
  • adjective Requiring much thought to create or assimilate.
  • noun The act or an instance of deliberate or extended thinking; a meditation.
  • idiom (come to think of it) When one considers the matter; on reflection.
  • idiom (aloud/out loud) To speak one's thoughts audibly.
  • idiom (think better of) To change one's mind about; reconsider.
  • idiom (think big) To plan ambitiously or on a grand scale.
  • idiom (think little of) To regard as inferior; have a poor opinion of.
  • idiom (think nothing of) To give little consideration to; regard as routine or usual.
  • idiom (think twice) To weigh something carefully.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To judge; say to one's self mentally; form as a judgment or conception.
  • To form a mental image of; imagine: often equivalent to recollect; recall; consider.
  • To cognize; apprehend; grasp intellectually.
  • To judge problematically; form a conception of (something) in the mind and recognize it as possibly true, without decidedly assenting to it as such.
  • To purpose; intend; mean; contemplate; have in mind (to do): usually followed by an infinitive clause as the object.
  • To hold as a belief or opinion; opine; believe; consider.
  • To feel: as, to think scorn.
  • To modify (an immediate object of cognition) at will; operate on by thought (in a specified way).
  • To devise; plan; project.
  • To solve by process of thought: as, to think out a chess problem.
  • To exercise the intellect, as in apprehension, judgment, or inference; exercise the cognitive faculties in any way not involving outward observation, or the passive reception of ideas from other minds.
  • To imagine: followed by of or on.
  • To attend (on); fasten the mind (on): followed by of.
  • To entertain a sentiment or opinion (in a specified way): with of: as, to think highly of a person's abilities.
  • To have a (specified) feeling (for); be affected (toward); especially, to have a liking or fondness: followed by of.
  • To think the time long; become weary or impatient, especially in waiting for something.
  • Synonyms To contemplate, reason.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English thenken, from Old English thencan; see tong- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English thinken, thynken, thenken, thenchen, from Old English þencan ("to meditate, cogitate, consider; think, have in mind; suppose, imagine, hold as an opinion or belief; think of, consider, employ the mind on a subject, reason"), from Proto-Germanic *þankijanan (“to think, suppose, perceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *tong-, *teng- (“to think, feel, know”). Cognate with Scots think, thynk ("to think"), North Frisian teenk, taanke, tanke, tånke ("to think"), Saterland Frisian toanke ("to think"), West Frisian tinke ("to think"), Dutch denken ("to think"), Low German denken ("to think"), German denken ("to think"), Danish tænke ("to think"), Swedish tänka ("to think"), Norwegian tenke ("to think"), Icelandic þekkja ("to know, recognise, identify, perceive"), Latin tongō ("know").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English þyncan.

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  • Think.

    June 3, 2009