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think - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

A girl thinking

From Middle English thinken, thynken, thenken, thenchen, from Old English þenċan, from Proto-West Germanic *þankijan, from Proto-Germanic *þankijaną (“to think”), from Proto-Indo-European *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, dinken (“to think”), Afrikaans dink (“to think”), Low German denken, dinken (“to think”), German denken (“to think”), Danish tænke (“to think”), Swedish tänka (“to think”), Norwegian Bokmål tenke (“to think”), Norwegian Nynorsk tenkja (“to think”), Icelandic þekkja (“to know, recognise, identify, perceive”), Latin tongeō (“know”).

think (third-person singular simple present thinks, present participle thinking, simple past and past participle thought)

  1. (transitive) To ponder, to go over in one's mind.

    Idly, the detective thought what his next move should be.

    • c. 1650, Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress:
      Had we but world enough and time / This coyness, lady, were no crime. / We would sit down, and think which way / To walk, and pass our long love's day.
  2. (transitive) To have (some statement) in one's mind; to say to oneself mentally.

    "I should phone my mother," I thought.

    • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

      So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills, […] a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

  3. (intransitive) To communicate to oneself in one's mind, to try to find a solution to a problem.

    I thought for three hours about the problem and still couldn’t find the solution.

    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

      Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”

  4. (intransitive) To conceive of something or someone (usually followed by of; infrequently, by on).

    I tend to think of her as rather ugly.

    • 2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

      Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.

  5. (transitive) To be of opinion (that); to consider, judge, regard, or look upon (something) as.

    At the time I thought his adamant refusal to give in right.

    I hope you won’t think me stupid if I ask you what that means.

    I think she is pretty, contrary to most people.

    Boxing is thought to be a dangerous sport.

    • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 255, column 2:

      My brother he is in Elizium, / Perchance he is not drown'd: What thinke you, ſaylors?.

    • 1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter IX. "The Sea and the Desert", page 182.
      […] one man showed me a young oak which he had transplanted from behind the town, thinking it an apple-tree.
  6. (transitive) To guess; to reckon; to believe while admittedly being uncertain.

    I think she’ll pass the examination.

  7. To plan; to be considering; to be of a mind (to do something).
  8. To presume; to venture.
  9. (informal, used to show obviousness or agreement) Ellipsis of think so.

    These plants are dead.
    Uh, you think?

to ponder, to go over in one's head

communicate to oneself in one’s mind

to conceive of something or someone

be of the opinion that

guess, reckon

consider, judge, regard something as

Translations to be checked

think (usually uncountable, plural thinks)

  1. (chiefly UK) An act of thinking; consideration (of something).

    I'll have a think about that and let you know.

an act of thinking

From Middle English thinken, thynken, thenken (also thinchen, thünchen), from Old English þyncan (“to seem, appear”), from Proto-Germanic *þunkijaną (“to seem”).

Cognate with Dutch dunken (“to seem, appear”), German dünken (“to seem, appear”), Danish tykkes (“to seem”), Swedish tycka (“to seem, think, regard”), Icelandic þykja (“to be regarded, be considered, seem”). More at methinks.

think (third-person singular simple present thinks, present participle thinking, simple past and past participle thought)

  2. (obsolete except in methinks) To seem, to appear.

    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter V, in Le Morte Darthur, book XV:

      And whanne syr launcelot sawe he myghte not ryde vp in to the montayne / he there alyghte vnder an Appel tree / […] / And then he leid hym doune to slepe / And thenne hym thoughte there came an old man afore hym / the whiche sayd A launcelot of euylle feythe and poure byleue / wherfor is thy wille tourned soo lyghtely toward thy dedely synne

      And when Sir Lancelot saw that he could not ride up into the mountain, he alighted under an apple tree […] and then he lay down to sleep. And then it seemed to him [lit. him thought] that an old man came before him who said: "Lancelot, of evil faith and poor belief, why is thy will turned so lightly towards thy deadly sin?"
  1. ^ Wolfram, Walt and Donna Christian. 1976. Appalachian speech. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

From earlier thynk, from Middle English thynken, thinken, from Old English þencan, þenċean.

think (third-person singular simple present thinks, present participle thinking, simple past thocht, past participle thocht)

  1. (transitive) to think, to conceive, to have in mind
  2. (transitive) to believe, to hold as an opinion, to judge; to feel, to have as an emotion

    • 1895, Ian Maclaren, A Doctor of the Old School, page 175:

      He hed juist ae faut, tae ma thinkin, for a’ never jidged the waur o’ him for his titch of rochness—guid trees hae gnarled bark—but he thotched ower little o’ himsel’.

      He had just one fault, in my opinion, for I never judged the worse of him for his touch of roughness—good trees have gnarled bark—but he thought over little of himself.
  3. (transitive or intransitive) to ponder, to meditate, to consider, to reflect on
  4. (transitive or intransitive) to have scruples, to doubt, to reconsider

    • 1924, Marion Angus, “Think Lang”, in Tinker's road, and other verses, page 37:

      Lassie, think lang, think lang, / Ere his step comes ower the hill. / Luve gi’es wi’ a launch an’ a sang, / An’ whiles for nocht bit ill.

      Girl, think more, think more, before his step comes over the hill. Love comes with a laugh and a song, and sometimes for nothing but harm.
  5. to devise, to work out, to contrive
  6. (archaic, with shame) to be ashamed

    • 1853, David Macbeth Moir, The Life of Mansie Wauch, page 225:

      Think shame—think shame—think black-burning shame o’ yoursell, ye born and bred ruffian!

      Be ashamed—be ashamed—be deeply ashamed of yourself, you born and bred ruffian!

think (plural thinks)

  1. thought, opinion, frequently one’s own opinion

    his ain think

    his own opinion