Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- pro. Used to indicate the one being addressed, especially in a literary, liturgical, or devotional context.
- n. Slang A thousand, especially of dollars.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- A personal pronoun of the second person, in the singular number, nominative case, the possessive case being thy or thine, and the objective thee: plural, ye or you, your, you. See thine and you.
- In ordinary English use the place of thou has been taken by you, which is properly plural, and takes a plural verb. Thou is now little used except archaically, in poetry, provincially, in addressing the Deity, and by the Friends, who usually say not thou but thee, putting a verb in the third person singular with it: as, thee is or is thee?
- Formerly it was used in general address, and often bore special significance, according to circumstances, as noting— equality, familiarity, or intimacy
- superiority on the part of the speaker
- contempt or scorn for the person addressed (see thou, v.).
- To address as “thou”: implying (except when referring to the usage of the Friends) familiarity, wrath, scorn, contempt, etc.
- To use thou, thee, thy, and thine in discourse, as do the Friends.
Wiktionary
- pro. you (singular informal)
- v. To address (a person) using the pronoun term, especially as an expression of familiarity or contempt.
- v. To use the word term.
- n. A unit of length equal to one-thousandth of an inch.
- n. A thousand, especially a thousand dollars, a thousand pounds sterling, etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- pro. The second personal pronoun, in the singular number, denoting the person addressed; thyself; the pronoun which is used in addressing persons in the solemn or poetical style.
- v. To address as
thou , esp. to do so in order to treat with insolent familiarity or contempt. - v. To use the words
thou andthee in discourse after the manner of the Friends.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the cardinal number that is the product of 10 and 100
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old English thū, second person nominative sing. personal pron.; see tu- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“How shouldst thou so utterly desert me, Zorzi -- _thou_, and my people whom I love!”
“Tell me now, thou of the gray head, of what art _thou_ thinking? ”
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2
“With a wild cry she broke from him, and as bitter tears ran down her cheek, she said, "O Kephalos, Kephalos, why hast thou done thus? all my love was thine, and _thou_ hast drawn me into evil deeds.”
“Happy ferry-man, thought Grainier, thou aspirest not to fame; thou composest no epithalamiums.”
“But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress, whose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?”
“And thou, he said, thou gavest me thine oath that thou wouldst bring me in safety to Ehrenfels.”
“Wilt thou be quiet, said the wolf, thou wilt waken up the people!”
“Say, whither art thou leading this glutton, thou wretched swineherd, this plaguy beggar, a kill-joy of the feast?”
“But thou art a thing preferred to honour: thou art thyself a fragment torn from God: thou hast a portion of Him within thyself.”
“Before thou receivest my daughter, and half of my kingdom, said he to him, thou must perform one more heroic deed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘thou’.
-
Olde Englisc
English words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
onslaught, slain, clove, clave, thrice, nincompoop, scorn, storm, scant, lurk, beneath, atop and 143 more...
-
henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
-
The weird, the wonderful and the plain hilarious
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
-
Words That Are Fun to Say.
error, acetylsalicylic acid, hemidemisemiquaver, misanthropic, cantankerous, thou, prolixity, wherefore, lozenge, fisticuffs, comparatively, strumpet and 2 more...
-
Anglo-Saxon/Old English
Anglo-Saxon rootwords
mote, huru, byspel, elfshine, infaru, snotor, dern, upspring, meed, lof, queem, hof and 82 more...
-
Old timey words i love

reesetee Also called the mil; defined as 1/1,000 of an inch (25.4 µm), frequently used to measure the thickness of very thin materials such as film and plastic sheeting. Mar 1, 2011
qroqqa One of only two(?) minimal pairs contrasting /ð/ and /θ/ initially: /ðaʊ/ "you" ~ /θaʊ/ "thousandth of an inch" (or colloquially "thousand"). The other initial pair is 'thus'; final contrasts occur in 'mouth' (n. and v.) and possibly 'withe'/'with'. Jun 10, 2009
seanahan Well, I've definitely said, "5 thou" to refer to thousand. Add that to the fact WordNet only contains content words, nouns, verbs, etc., and this makes complete sense. Jun 19, 2008
bilby Wherefore art 1000, Romeo? Jun 16, 2008
vanishedone Thou, WeirdNet, art thinking of thousand. Jun 16, 2008