Word: think Part of Speech: verb Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *þankijan Old English þenċan Middle English thinken English think 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”), Gothic þagkjan (“to think”), Latin tongeō (“know”). Pronunciation: /ˈθɪŋk/, [ˈθɪŋk], /ˈθæŋk/, [ˈθæŋk], /ˈθeɪ̯ŋk/ 1. To ponder, to go over in one's mind. Labels: transitive Example: Idly, the detective thought what his next move should be. Example: 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. To have (some statement) in one's mind; to say to oneself mentally. Labels: transitive Example: "I should phone my mother," I thought. Example: 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. To communicate to oneself in one's mind, to try to find a solution to a problem. Labels: intransitive Example: I thought for three hours about the problem and still couldn’t find the solution. Example: 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. To conceive of something or someone Labels: intransitive Example: I tend to think of her as rather ugly. Example: 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. To be of the opinion (that); to consider, judge, regard, or look upon (something) as. Labels: transitive Example: I don't think it worth complaining about the leak in the roof, is it? Example: I hope you won’t think me stupid if I ask you what that means. 6. To guess; to reckon; to believe while admittedly being uncertain. Labels: transitive Example: We should/would have thought she could've washed her hands before, at least. 7. To plan; to be considering; to be of a mind (to do something). Example: The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. "I thought to have lodged him in the solere chamber," said he[…] Example: “Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity. 8. To presume; to venture. Example: Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. 9. Ellipsis of think so. Labels: abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, informal Example: These plants are dead. Uh, you think?