methought
English
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ɔːt
Verb
methought
- (archaic) simple past and past participle of methinks
- c. 1610-11, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III, Scene ii[1]:
- Be not afeared, the isle is full of noises,
- Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
- Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
- Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
- That if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
- Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming
- The clouds methought would open and show riches
- Ready to drop upon me, that when I wak'd
- I cried to dream again.
- later 17th c., John Milton, Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint:
- Methought I saw my late espoused saint
- Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
- Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
- Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
- 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven:
- Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
- Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
- 'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee — by these angels he has sent thee
- Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
- Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
- Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'
- 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, […]
- c. 1610-11, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III, Scene ii[1]: