methinks
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From me (“object pronoun”) + think (“to seem”). The modern syntax would be "it makes me think".
In Early Modern English, used at least 150 times by William Shakespeare; in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, me thinketh; and in Old English by Alfred the Great, mē þyncþ. Compare synonymous German mir dünkt, Old Norse mér þykkir (Icelandic mér þykir).
Pronunciation[edit]
Contraction[edit]
methinks (past tense methought)
- (archaic or humorous) It seems to me.
- 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “(please specify the story)”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:
- Me thinketh accordant to reson
To tellen you al the condicion- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
- methinks the truth should live from age to age,
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
- The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
- 1862 February, George Augustus [Henry] Sala, “The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous; a Narrative in Plain English, […] Chapter the Fourth. My Grandmother Dies, and I am Left Alone, without So Much as a Name.”, in George Augustus Sala, editor, Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume IV, London: Office of "Temple Bar," 122 Fleet Street; Ward and Lock, 158 Fleet Street; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers, →OCLC, page 304:
- And then methought my dream changed, and two Great Giants with heading-axes came striding over the bed, […]
- 2003, “Bringing Up Buster”, in Arrested Development:
- Dr. Tobias Funke: Methinks a cupid I shall play.
Translations[edit]
it seems to me
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See also[edit]
References[edit]
- John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “methinks”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
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