thought
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: thôt
ipa: /θɔːt/
ipa: /θɔt/
ipa: /θɑt/
ipa: [θɒ(ː)t]
ipa: [θɒ(ː)t]
ipa: [θɔ(ː)t]
ipa: /θoːt/
rhymes: -ɔːt
homophone: thot (cot–caught merger)
Forms: form: thoughts
form: thowt
form: thaught
form: thot
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.
Senses: examples: text: The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
text: I hate the thought of going back to work Monday morning.
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
glosses: A representation created in the mind without the use of one's faculties of vision, sound, smell, touch, or taste; an instance of thinking.
examples: text: Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
text: The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.
ref: a. 1983, Paul Fix (attributed quote)
text: 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.
ref: 2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.1, at p.14, 15
synonyms: thinking#Noun
coordinate_terms: cognition#Noun
cogitation#Noun[Appendix:Glossary#loosely|loosely]] synonymous>
;
emotion#Noun
feeling#Noun
glosses: The operation by which mental activity arise or are manipulated; the process of thinking; the agency by which thinking is accomplished.
examples: text: Traditional eastern thought differs markedly from that of the west.
glosses: A way of thinking (associated with a group, nation or region).
examples: text: Which of you by taking thought, can adde one cubite vnto his ſtature?
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 6:27:
glosses: Anxiety, distress.
examples: text: After much thought, I have decided to stay.
synonyms: word: cogitation
word: contemplation
word: deliberation
word: mulling
word: musing
word: pondering
word: meditation
word: reflection
word: rethinking
word: reconsideration
word: rumination
word: thought
glosses: The careful consideration of multiple factors; deliberation.
examples: text: 'Bide the night at Heriotside,' says he. 'It's a thought out of your way, but it's a comfortable bit.'
ref: 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
glosses: A very small amount, distance, etc.; a whit or jot.
Derived terms: aforethought
afterthought
bethought
chain of thought
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
netherthought
nether thought
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
thoughtcast
thoughtcasting
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
thoughts and prayers
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