thou

English

Wikipedia

Etymology 1

From Middle English thou, thow, thu, þou, from Old English þū, from Proto-Germanic *þū, from Proto-Indo-European *túh₂. Akin to Old Frisian thū (West Frisian do), Old Saxon thū (Low German du), Old Dutch thū (Middle Dutch du, Limburgish doe), Old High German dū (German du), Old Norse þú, (Icelandic þú, Danish du, Norwegian du, Swedish du), Latin tu, Ancient Greek σύ (sú) (Modern Greek εσύ (esý)).

Pronunciation

• enPR: thou, IPA^(key): /ðaʊ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊ

Alternative forms

• thu, du, thow, tha

Pronoun

Wikipedia

thou (plural ye or you, objective case thee, reflexive thyself, possessive determiner thy or thine, possessive pronoun thine)

1. (archaic, literary, religious, ceremonial, or dialectal) you singular informal, nominative case
   • 1742, Charles Wesley, “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” (song): 

     Come, O thou Traveller unknown, / Whom still I hold, but cannot see! / My company before is gone, / And I am left alone with Thee; / With Thee all night I mean to stay, / And wrestle till the break of day.

   • 1743, unknown, [18th-century sermon on Ephesians 5:14 in the Bible]^[1], page 3:

     EPHES. V. 14. Awake thou that ſleepeth, and ariſe from the Dead, and Chriſt shall give thee Light.

   • 2014 October 30, Ben Brantley, “When the head leads the heart: 'The Real Thing,' With Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal, opens on Broadway [print version: When the witty head is far ahead of the heart: Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ewan McGregor star in revival of 'Real Thing', International New York Times, 4 November 2014, p. 9]”, The New York Times:

     [I]ts main character, Henry (Mr. [Ewan] McGregor), is a successful, intellectual dramatist who seems quite capable of churning out fizzy, challenging works about brilliant but ambivalent revolutionaries, philosophers, etc. […] But this cleverer-than-thou creature gets his comeuppance in "The Real Thing," showing that a very human heart – just like those possessed by the less sesquipedalian – beats beneath his fancy words.

Usage notes

• Thou is used with the archaic second-person singular of verbs, which usually ends in -est, as in, for example, “Lovest thou me?” Irregular forms include: art (of be), hast (of have), shalt (of shall), wost (of wit), wilt (of will), and dost (of do).

Derived terms

• th'art
• thou'lt
• thou'rt
• thou'st

Translations

singular informal form of "you"

• Arabic: أنت (ar) m ('ánta), أنت (ar) f ('ánti)

  Egyptian Arabic: انت m (ínta), انت f (ínti)

  Tunisian Arabic: اِنْتِ m, f (ʾinti)

• Armenian: դու (hy) (du)
• Belarusian: ты (be) (ty)
• Bengali: তুই (tui)
• Bulgarian: ти (ti)
• Catalan: tu (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 你 (zh) (nǐ), 祢 (zh) (nǐ) (to God), (archaic) 爾 (zh), 尔 (zh) (ěr), 汝 (zh) (rǔ)

• Czech: ty (cs)
• Danish: du (da)
• Dutch: gij (nl) (archaic or dialectal), jij (nl)
• Esperanto: ci (eo)
• Faroese: tú
• Finnish: sinä (fi)
• French: tu (fr) m, f
• Galician: ti (gl) m, f
• Georgian: შენ (ka) (šen)
• German: du (de), Du (de)
• Gothic: 𐌸𐌿 (þu)
• Hebrew: אתה (he) m (atá), את (he) f (at)
• Hindi: तुम (tum), तू (tū)
• Hungarian: te (hu)
• Icelandic: þú (is)
• Irish: tú
• Italian: tu (it)
• Japanese: 君 (ja) (きみ, kimi), 汝 (ja) (なんじ, nanji), お前 (おまえ, omae), あなた (ja) (anata), 貴方 (ja) (anata), あんた (anta)
• Korean: 당신 (ko) (dangsin) (當身 (ko)), 너 (ko) (neo), 네 (ko) (ne)
• Latin: tu (la)
• Lithuanian: tu (lt)

• Macedonian: ти (mk) (ti)
• Malay: engkau
• Norwegian: du (no)
• Ojibwe: giin
• Old Church Slavonic:

  Cyrillic: тꙑ (ty)

  Glagolitic: ⱅⱏⰺ (ty)

• Old English: þū
• Old Irish: tú
• Persian: تو (fa) (to)
• Polish: ty (pl)
• Portuguese: tu (pt)
• Romanian: tu (ro)
• Russian: ты (ru) (ty)
• Scots: thoo
• Scottish Gaelic: thu, tu
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ти̑

  Roman: tȋ

• Sinhalese: ඔයා (oyā)
• Slovak: ty (sk)
• Slovene: tí
• Spanish: tú (es) m, f
• Swedish: du (sv)
• Thai: คุณ (th) (kun), เธอ (th) (ter)
• Turkish: sen (tr)
• Udihe: си
• Ukrainian: ти (uk) (ty)
• Urdu: تم (tum), تو (tū)
• Vietnamese: mày (vi), em (vi)
• Welsh: ti (cy)
• Yiddish: דו m (du)

See also

English personal pronouns

Number	Person	Type	Subject	Objective	Reflexive	Possessive adjective	Possessive pronoun
Singular	First	—	I	me	myself	my	mine
	Second	—	you	you	yourself	your	yours
		Archaic	thou	thee	thyself, theeself	thy	thine
	Third	Masculine	he	him	himself, hisself (archaic)	his
		Feminine	she	her	herself	her	hers
		Neuter	it		itself	its	its (rare)
		Indefinite	one		oneself	one's	—
Plural	First	—	we	us	ourselves	our	ours
	Second	—	you, ye (archaic)	you	yourselves	your	yours
	Third	—	they	them	themselves	their	theirs

Verb

thou (third-person singular simple present thous, present participle thouing, simple past and past participle thoued)

1. (transitive) To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of familiarity or contempt.
   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘On the City Wall’, In Black and White, Folio Society 2005, p. 443:

     "One service more, Sahib, since thou hast come so opportunely," said Lalun. "Wilt thou" – it is very nice to be thou-ed by Lalun – "take this old man across the City [...] to the Kumharsen Gate?"

   I thou thee, thou traitor! (Edward Coke to Walter Raleigh)

   Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin, I tell thee! (The morality play Hickscorner, ca. 1530)

   If thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss[...] (Twelfth Night 3.2, Sir Toby Belch to Sir Andrew, egging him on to pick a fight with another, where one would expect one knight courteously to say to another, "If you thou him...").

   Don't thou them as thous thee! (Yorkshire English admonition to overly familiar children)

2. (intransitive) To use the word thou.

Antonyms

• you

Translations

to address someone using the pronoun thou

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Czech: tykat (cs)
• Dutch: jij en jou zeggen, tutoyeren (nl)
• Faroese: túa
• Finnish: sinutella (fi)
• French: tutoyer (fr)
• German: duzen (de)
• Greek: μιλάω στὸ ἑνικό (miláo sto enikó, "speak in the singular")
• Hungarian: tegez (hu)

• Icelandic: þúa
• Italian: dar del tu a
• Japanese: 呼び捨て (よびすて, yobisute)
• Polish: mówić na ty (pl), (informal) tykać (pl)
• Portuguese: tratar por tu
• Russian: тыкать (ru) (týkat’), тыкнуть (ru) (týknut’)
• Slovak: tykať
• Slovene: tíkati
• Spanish: tutear (es)
• Turkish: sen (tr)

to use the word thou

• Dutch: tutoyeren (nl)

• Icelandic: þúa

Etymology 2

Shortened from thousandth.

Pronunciation

• enPR: thou, IPA^(key): /θaʊ/
• Rhymes: -aʊ

Noun

thou (plural thous)

1. (dated UK) A unit of length equal to one-thousandth of an inch.

Synonyms

• mil (US)

Etymology 3

Shortened from thousand.

Pronunciation

• enPR: thou, IPA^(key): /θaʊ/
• Rhymes: -aʊ

Noun

thou (plural thou)

1. (slang) A thousand, especially a thousand dollars, a thousand pounds sterling, etc.

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: asked · soon · almost · #217: thou · full · country · course