# thought
## English
### Alternative forms

* thowt (archaic)
* thaught (nonstandard)
* thot (archaic)

### Etymology

From Middle English thought, ithoȝt, from Old English þōht, ġeþōht, from Proto-West Germanic *þą̄ht, from Proto-Germanic *þanhtaz, *gaþanhtą (“thought”), from Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to think”). Cognate with Scots thocht (“thought”), Saterland Frisian Toacht (“thought”), West Frisian dacht (“attention, regard, thought”), Dutch gedachte (“thought”), German Andacht (“reverence, devotion, prayer”), Icelandic þóttur (“thought”). Related to thank, think.

### Pronunciation

* enPR: thôt
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /θɔːt/, (Standard Southern British) [θoːt]
** Audio (London):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /θɔt/
** (Inland Northern American) IPA: [θɒ(ː)t]
** (cot–caught merger) IPA: /θɑt/
** Audio (US):(file)
** Homophone: thot
* (Canada) IPA: [θɒ(ː)t], [θɔ(ː)t]
* (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /θoːt/
* Rhymes: -ɔːt

### Noun

thought (countable and uncountable, plural thoughts)
* (countable) Representation created in the mind without the use of one's faculties of vision, sound, smell, touch, or taste; an instance of thinking.
    The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
** 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.
** 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […] , the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.
* (uncountable) The operation by which mental activity arise or are manipulated; the process of thinking; the agency by which thinking is accomplished.
    Synonym: thinking (noun)
    Coordinate terms: cognition, cogitation (loosely synonymous); emotion, feelings
    Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
** a. 1983, Paul Fix (attributed quote)
    The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.
** 2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.1, at p.14, 15:
    What has been especially striking in recent decades, however, is the rise of new outlooks challenging the very idea of a nucleated (if evasive) inner personal identity. [...] We don't think our thoughts, they think us; we are but the bearers of discourses, our selves are discursive constructs. Within such frames of analysis, any notion of the ascent of selfhood is but idle teleological myth, a humanist hagiography.
* (countable) A way of thinking (associated with a group, nation or region).
    Traditional eastern thought differs markedly from that of the west.
* (uncountable, now dialectal) Anxiety, distress.
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 6:27:Which of you by taking thought, can adde one cubite vnto his ſtature?
* (uncountable) The careful consideration of multiple factors; deliberation.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:consideration
    After much thought, I have decided to stay.
* A very small amount, distance, etc.; a whit or jot.
** 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:'Bide the night at Heriotside,' says he. 'It's a thought out of your way, but it's a comfortable bit.'

#### Derived terms

* aforethought
* afterthought
* bethought
* collect one's thoughts
* counterthought
* food for thought
* forethought
* freedom of thought
* free thought
* gather one's thoughts
* give thought
* habit of thought
* have another thought coming
* hindthought
* hold that thought
* intrusive thought
* it's the thought that counts
* line of thought
* lost in thought
* merrythought
* metathought
* midthought
* misthought
* mode of thought
* mood-thought
* MTE (my thoughts exactly)
* nether thought
* netherthought
* nonthought
* on second thought
* on second thoughts
* overthought
* park that thought
* passthought
* penny for your thoughts
* perish the thought
* quick as thought
* school of thought
* second thought
* shower thought
* there's a thought
* thought balloon
* thought-bearing
* thought blocking
* thought broadcasting
* thought bubble
* thought collective
* thought control
* thought-controlled
* thoughtcrime
* thought criminal
* thought echo
* thoughted
* thought experiment
* thoughtform
* thought-form
* thoughtful
* thought-leader
* thought leader
* thoughtless
* thoughtlet
* thoughtlike
* thoughtograph
* thoughtographer
* thoughtography
* thought-out
* thought path
* thought pattern
* thought piece
* thought police
* thought process
* thoughtproof
* thought-provoking
* thought reform
* thoughtscape
* thought shower
* thoughtsick
* thoughtsome
* thought-terminating cliché
* thought wave
* thoughtway
* thought-world
* thoughtworthy
* thoughty
* thread of thought
* train of thought
* twithought
* underthought
* unthought
* unthoughted
* wishful thought

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Verb

thought
* simple past and past participle of think

## Middle English
### Alternative forms

* thoughte, thougt, thouhte, thoute
* thogt, thohte, thogh

### Etymology

From Old English þōht, from Proto-West Germanic *þą̄ht, from Proto-Germanic *þanhtaz.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /θɔu̯xt/, /θɔxt/

### Noun

thought (plural thoughtes)
* product of mental activity

#### Descendants

* English: thought
* Scots: thocht
* Yola: thaugkt

#### References

* “thought, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.