| 释义 |
▪ I. thought1|θɔːt|
Forms: 1–3 ðoht, 1–4 þoht, 2–4 þouht, 3–4 þoȝt, 3–5 þouȝt, 5– thought; also 3 þoucht, (Orm.) þohht (ðhoȝt), 3–4 þoȝte, 4 thouȝt, (thouht, thouth, thout, toght); 4–5 þoght, thoȝt, (þout, þouth, thoȝth), Sc. thoucht; 4–7 thoght; 5 þowȝt, þouȝte, thoȝte, (thowhte, þowȝth, þowth, towyth (? towȝth), 5–6 thoughte, thowte, thowthe, 6 thowghte, thoft), 4– Sc. thocht.
[OE. þoht, shortened from *þóht,:—*þaŋχt-, from stem of þencan think v.2 + -t suffix3. Cf. OS. githâht (Du. gedachte), OHG. gidâht; also ON. þótti, þóttr, Goth. þûhtus (:—*þuŋχtus). In most of the senses thought corresponds not so much to OE. þoht, as to the compound ᵹeþoht, which survived in the 12th c. as iþoht: see sense 2.]
1. a. The action or process of thinking; mental action or activity in general, esp. that of the intellect; exercise of the mental faculty; formation and arrangement of ideas in the mind.
In quot. c 1250, thinking in a specified way; nearly = feeling, emotion.
a839Laws of Ecgbert c. 5 Mid þohtes wilnunga..besmiten. c1250Gen. & Ex. 2254 Quanne Iosep hem alle saȝ, Kinde ðoȝt in his herte was ðaȝ. 1377Langl. P. Pl. B. v. 513 Þise Ribaudes..repente hem..Þat euere þei wratthed þe.. in worde, þouȝte, or dedes. c1425Craft of Nombrynge (E.E.T.S.) 28 Here he teches þe to multiplie be þowȝt figures in þi mynde. c1440Promp. Parv. 492/1 Thowhte, or thynkynge, cogitacio. 1530Palsgr. 280/2 Thought, the laboryng of the mynde, cogitation, pensee. 1637Milton Lycidas 189 With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay. 1704Norris Ideal World ii. iii. 102 Whether Brutes are capable of thought? 1794Paley Evid. iii. viii. (1817) 393 Thought..can be completely suspended and completely restored. 1853Kingsley Hypatia xiv. 166 The pale..student, oppressed with the weight of careful thought. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 270 Psychology..analyses the transition from sense to thought.
b. As a function or attribute of a living being: Thinking as a permanent characteristic or condition; the capacity of thinking; the thinking faculty; in early use often nearly = mind.
c950Lindisf. Gosp. Matt. xxii. 37 Lufa drihten..of alle hearte ðine & of alle sauele ðine & in alle ðoht ðinne [L. in tota mente tua]. Ibid. Mark v. 15 Sittende ᵹecladed..& hales ðohtes [L. sane mentis]. [c1175Lamb. Hom. 99 He onlihte ure mod mid seofanfald ȝife, þet is mid wisdom, and angite mid iðohte, and streinde [etc.]. ]c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 71 We hauen on ure þoht, to shewen him ure sinnes. a1300Cursor M. 22166 (Edin.) Þai sale be studiand in þair þoȝte [Gött. thouth] Queþir þate he be criste ouir nai. Ibid. 25598 Do wickednes vte of vr thoght. c1386Chaucer Wife's T. 227 Greet was the wo the knyght hadde in his thoght. c1400Emare 223 Alle hys hert & alle hys þowȝth, Her to loue was yn browght. c1460Wisdom 959 in Macro Plays 67 Put yt, Lorde, in-to my thowte. c1470Henry Wallace i. 251 With hewy cheyr and sorowfull in thocht. 1605Shakes. Lear iv. vi. 45 Had he bin where he thought, By this had thought bin past. 1830Tennyson Deserted House i, Life and Thought have gone away. 1877E. R. Conder Bas. Faith i. 8 Thought, feeling, will, are the three strands of the triple cord of life.
c. The product of mental action or effort; what one thinks; that which is in the mind (sometimes, as expressed in language: cf. quot. 1702). train of thought: see train n.1 12 b.
c1200Ormin 2577 Forr hire þohht & hire word & hire weorrc wass clene. c1250Hymn to God 12 in Trin. Coll. Hom. 258 Þu þe wost al ure þoucht. c1290Beket 1188 in S. Eng. Leg. I. 140 He rounede in is wiues ere, and tolde hire al is þouȝt. c1375Sc. Leg. Saints i. (Petrus) 424 Cum furth, and say Þi thoucht and ded but delay. c1400Mandeville (Roxb.) xiii. 59 Oure Lord takes mare hede to thoȝt þan to word. 1560Bible (Genev.) Ps. cxxxix. 2 Thou vnderstandest my thoght afarre of. 1702Addison Dial. Medals i. Wks. 1721 I. 439 One..may often find as much thought on the reverse of a Medal as in a Canto of Spenser. 1732Pope Hor. Sat. ii. ii. 129 Thus Bethel spoke, who always speaks his thought. 1822‘B. Cornwall’ Flood Thessaly ii. 553 Those wondrous letters..By which bright thought was in its quick flight stopp'd And saved from perishing. 1865Tylor Early Hist. Man. iv. 68 Thought is not even present to the thinker, till he has set it forth out of himself.
d. In a collective sense (with defining adj.): The intellectual activity or mental product characteristic of the thinkers of a particular class, time, or place; what is or has been thought by the philosophers or learned men of some specified country, etc. Also (without defining adj.), that of a named person [cf. G. denken].
a1853Robertson Lect. (1858) 228 Wordsworth is the type of English thought. 1856N. Brit. Rev. XXVI. 39 How old is Modern Thought?—a few years only:—we think ten years—in this country, will include the time within which this peculiar tendency and feeling has distinctly shown its characteristics... Modern Thought, regarded as the opposite and the antagonist of an unexceptive submission to the authority of Holy Scripture. 1884F. Temple Relat. Relig. & Sc. v. (1885) 132 The leaders of scientific thought. 1903P. Shorey (title) The unity of Plato's thought. a1912Mod. Plato and Aristotle, the leaders of Greek thought. 1935R. B. Perry (title) The thought and character of William James as revealed in unpublished correspondence and notes, together with his published writings. 1960G. Harland Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr i. 13 The centrality of Christology in Niebuhr's thought is clear and unmistakable. 1964S. J. Wilson (title) The thought of Cicero. 1968in Gray & Cavendish Chinese Communism in Crisis 222 A force of revolutionised workers, armed with the thought of Mao Tse-tung, has been trained and tempered. 1971D. McLellan Thought of Karl Marx p. ix, An exposition of certain themes central to Marx's thought. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia IV. 395/2 Socialist education at first had a rather abstract quality, because people had to measure their lives against the ‘thought of Mao Tse-tung’, a slogan that was to grow in popularity.
2. a. (with a and pl.) A single act or product of thinking; an item of mental activity; something that one thinks or has thought; a thing that is in the mind; an idea, notion. (Sometimes, as expressed in writing: as in quots. 1645, 1709, 1875, 1967.)
c975Rushw. Gosp. Matt. ix. 4 And þa ᵹeseende ðohtas heora cwæþ to heom forhwon þencaþ ᵹe yfel in heortum eowrum? [c1175Lamb. Hom. 109 Ðan alden his to warniene wið uuele iþohtas.] c1200Vices & Virt. 11 Oðer of ðouhtes oðer of wordes oðer of weorkes. 13..Cursor M. 27101 (Cott.) Vr thoghtes ar þai be thoght..he seis. 1451J. Capgrave Life St. Gilbert 86 Occupied with orisones and meditaciones to avoyde euel þoutes. 1557N. T. (Genev.) 2 Cor. x. 5 Wherwith we..bringe into captiuitie euery thoght, to the obedience of Christe. a1568King H. Steward in Bann. Poems (Hunter. Cl.) 706 Gif cairfull thoftis restoir My havy hairt. 1604Shakes. Oth. iii. iii. 161 Oth. Ile know thy Thoughts. Iago. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand, Nor shall not, whil'st 'tis in my custodie. 1645Fuller (title) Good Thoughts in Bad Times. 1709Pope Ess. Crit. 354 The last..couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought. 1754Gray Progr. Poesy iii. iii, Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. 1803–6Wordsw. Intim. Immort. xi, Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 1824L. M. Hawkins Annaline I. 344, I will collect my scattered thoughts. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 28 A similar thought is repeated in the Laws. 1891‘J. S. Winter’ Lumley i, Here I'm idle and haven't a thought in my head—there my brain positively teems with ideas. 1967tr. Mao Tse-Tung (title) The thoughts of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. 1971[see red book, red-book 4]. 1977‘S. Leys’ Chinese Shadows (1978) i. 11 ‘We have friends all over the world.’ This Thought of Chairman Mao can be seen on many walls. 1982Sunday Tel. 7 Mar. 10/2 Between 1928 and 1941 there were less than 5,000 prosecutions [in Japan] for ‘dangerous thoughts’.
b. spec. An idea suggested or recalled to the mind; a reflection, a consideration. thought for the day (week, etc.): a pregnant or gnomic thought (esp. one published or broadcast) to be pondered in the course of the day.
a1240Ureisun in Cott. Hom. 203 Hwi ne bi-hold ich þis euer in mine heorte, and þenche ðet hit was for me... Þis þoht wolde sikerliche ontenden so soð luue on me. 1593Shakes. Rich. II, v. v. 28 Like silly Beggars, Who sitting in the Stockes, refuge their shame That many haue, and others must sit there; And in this Thought, they finde a kind of ease. 1665Boyle Occas. Refl. v. v, This..is onely to tell us, what you observ'd, not what Reflections you made upon it, and..that which I was inquisitive after, was your Thoughts. 1818Scott Hrt. Midl. xxxvii, The thoughts that ye hae intervened to spare the puir thing's life will be sweeter in that hour..than [etc.]. 1835J. H. Newman Par. Serm. (1837) I. i. 15 Though this thought should not make a man despair to-day, yet it should ever make him tremble for to-morrow. 1932R. Lehmann Invit. Waltz i. ii. 6 ‘Remember what Mother said yesterday.’ ‘What?’ ‘She'd have to start calling you herself.’ Olivia gave a hoarse chuckle. ‘Thought for the day...’ 1972B.B.C. Handbk. 1973 82 Thought for The Day is broadcast as part of the morning Today sequence at 7.45 a.m. 1973J. Leasor Host of Extras iii. 41 Gratitude is sufficiently rare to cause surprise in those who find it, which is my thought for today. 1976Listener 2 Dec. 716/3 So there, for the programme-makers' suggestion box, is a thought for the week. 1978R. Thomas Chinaman's Chance xv. 152 They pay a lot to live here and then they never get up in time to watch the sun rise... Just my thought for the day.
c. second thoughts: ideas occurring subsequently; later and maturer consideration (usu. in phr. on second thoughts or upon second thoughts). So first thoughts.
1642Chas. I Mess. to Both Houses 28 Apr. 4 Second thoughts may present somewhat to your considerations which escaped you before. 1667Milton P.L. ix. 213 Now advise Or hear what to my mind first thoughts present. 1687Bp. Cartwright in Magd. Coll. (O.H.S.) 139 Are you..willing upon better and second thoughts to submit? 1711Hickes Two Treat. Chr. Priesth. (1847) II. 396, I desire you to send your second thoughts and reflections upon it. 1838J. H. Newman Par. Serm. (1842) IV. ii. 41 It is often said that second thoughts are best; so they are in matters of judgment, but not in matters of conscience. 1864Tennyson Sea Dreams 65 Is it so true that second thoughts are best? Not first, and third, which are a riper first?
3. Proverbial Phrases (from 1 and 2):
a. as swift as thought, etc.; so at, like, upon, or with a thought, in an instant, immediately, at once.
b. thought is free: one is at liberty to think as one will.
a1225Ancr. R. 94 Ase swifte ase is nu monnes þouht, & ase is þe sunne gleam. 1572Forrest Theophilus 342 in Anglia VII, Made in vocation, And was present in manner, at a thought. 1588Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 261 Fleeter then arrows, bullets, wind, thought. 1610― Temp. iv. i. 164 Come with a thought; I thank thee Ariell: come. 1611― Wint. T. iv. iv. 565 Faster then Thought, or Time. 1845Gosse Ocean iv. (1849) 168 The whole herd are gone like a thought, leaving their unhappy comrade to his fate. 1885C. F. Holder Marvels Anim. Life 230 Quick as thought the skipper hurled his weapon.
b.1580Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 281 Thought is free my Lord quoth she. a1600[see thrall a.1 1 (b)]. 1601Shakes. Twel. N. i. iii. 73. 1673 Kirkman Unlucky Citizen 185, I would tell him that thought was free, and I should not tell him what I thought. 1690Dryden Amphitryon ii. i, I dare say nothing, but thought is free.
c. Phr. it is the thought that counts and varr.: the value (to the recipient of a gift) lies in the goodwill, affection, etc., with which it is given.
1934D. L. Sayer Nine Tailors ii. iv. 148 Not that I minded..where my poor little remembrance was placed, for..it is the thought that counts. 1961C. McCullers Clock without Hands iv. 78 A house-warming present..not too modern or attractive, but it's the thought that counts. 1976L. Thomas Dangerous Davies ix. 105 ‘He's eaten your Smarties.’.. ‘Thanks for bringing them anyway... It's the thought, really.’ 1982Preview Shopper (London ed.) Spring 7 It's the thought that matters. When someone you care for has a special occasion to celebrate you want to choose exactly the right gift.
4. In various specialized senses (from 1 and 2): cf. various senses of think v.2
a. Consideration, attention, heed, care, regard. to take thought, to consider, meditate (how to do something, etc.). In quot. 1602 implying indecision.
a1250Owl & Night. 492 He ne rekþ noht of clennesse, Al his þouht is of golnesse. a1300Cursor M. 1563 (Cott.) On al thinges was mare þair thoght [G. thout] Þan was on drightin þat al wroght. c1385Chaucer L.G.W. 373 (Balade) This schulde a ryghtwys lord han in his thouȝt. 1509Payne Evyll Marr. 125 And wyll take thought, and often muse How he myght fynde [etc.]. 1567Reg. Privy Council Scot. I. 519 Na persoun..takkis thocht quhat unhappy deid he sall tak upoun hand. 1602Shakes. Ham. iii. i. 85 And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought. 1684Earl of Roscommon Ess. Transl. Verse 162 Pride..Proceeds from Ignorance, and want of Thought. 1742Gray Ode Eton Coll. x, Thought would destroy their paradise. a1845Hood Lady's Dream xvi, Evil is wrought by want of Thought, As well as want of Heart! 1862F. Hall Hindu Philos. Syst. 109 To realize his own wretchedness, so that he may take thought how to escape from it.
b. Meditation, mental contemplation; † perplexity, puzzled condition of mind (quot. 1387, and cf. 5); † transf. subject of meditation (quot. c 1300). lost in thought: abstracted; absorbed in reverie or contemplation.
a1300Floriz & Bl. 34 On blauncheflur was al his þoȝt. c1300E.E. Psalter cxviii[i]. 97 Hou luued i, lauerd, þi lagh ai; Mi thoghte es it al þe dai. 1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) I. 311 To brynge here hertes out of þouȝt þat hereþ speke of laborintus, here I telle what laborinthus is to menynge. c1420Sir Amadace (Camden) xx, On the dede cors, that lay on bere, Ful myculle his thoȝte was on. 1611Sir W. Mure Misc. Poems ii. 13 Perceauing me in thot perplex'd. 1715Pope 2nd Ep. Miss Blount 33 In pensive thought recall the fancy'd scene. 1806J. Porter Thaddeus of Warsaw (ed. 4) III. x. 251 Miss Beaufort..was standing by one of the windows, evidently lost in thought. 1842Tennyson Ld. of Burleigh 21 From deep thought himself he rouses. 1863W. Collins No Name i. x. 44/1 He..sat at the table, drawing lines on the blotting-paper with his pen, lost in thought. a1912Mod. She was lost in thought. 1926B. A. McKelvie Huldowget iii. 35 He seemed lost in thought. 1955L. P. Hartley Perfect Woman xxvii. 240 Jeremy stood lost in thought. ‘She hasn't been away very long,’ he said.
c. Conception, imagination, fancy.
a1300Cursor M. 21630 (Edin.) Mar miȝtis hauis ur lauerd wroȝt Than ani man mai þinc in thoȝt. 1413Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton 1483) iii. x. 56 The grete horrour therof may not be..declared by..thought of mannes herte. 1593Shakes. Lucr. 288 Within his thought her heauenly image sits. 1602Marston Ant. & Mel. i. Wks. 1856 I. 15, I long, beyond all thought, To know the man. 1671Milton Samson 117 O change beyond report, thought, or belief! 1742Collins Ecl. ii. 50 When thought creates unnumber'd scenes of woe. 1832Tennyson Miller's Dau. 237 With blessings beyond hope or thought. 1850― In Mem. lxx. 8 In shadowy thoroughfares of thought.
d. The entertaining of some project in the mind; the idea or notion of doing something, as contemplated or entertained in the mind; hence, intention, purpose, design; esp. an imperfect or half-formed intention; with negative expressed or implied = not the least intention or notion of doing something. Also in pl. as ‘to have thoughts (of)’. Cf. think v.2 8.
c1250Gen. & Ex. 1153 Ðis maidenes deden it in god ðhoȝt. c1320Cast. Love 4 For nas neuere good werk wrouȝt Wt-oute biginninge of good þouȝt. c1425Cast. Persev. 581 in Macro Plays 94 Of worldly good is al his þouth. 1535Coverdale Jer. xxix. 11, I knowe, what I haue deuysed for you... My thoughtes are to geue you peace, & not trouble. 1610Shakes. Temp. iv. i. 220, I do begin to haue bloody thoughts. a1771Gray Tophet 6 Satan's self had thoughts of taking orders. 1818Scott Hrt. Midl. xlix, Knock says his Grace has no thought to buy it. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 76 All thought of returning to the policy of the Triple Alliance was abandoned. Mod. I had some thought of going, but found I could not manage it. I had no thoughts of it then.
e. Remembrance, ‘mind’. † to hold in thought, † to have thought on, to keep in mind, remember. Obs. or merged in the general sense.
1297R. Glouc. (Rolls) 6553 Of alle is proute dedes i ne may uorbere noȝt, Þat i ne mot ȝou telle of on, nou it comeþ in mi þoȝt. 13..Cursor M. 24042 (Gött.) To domes-dai liue if i moght, Ne ȝode it neuer vte of mi thoght. 13..Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS. l. 66 Hold hem in þi þouht. c1400Gamelyn 474 Adams wordes he held in his thoght. c1475Rauf Coilȝear 257 Haue gude thocht on my Name. 1611Shakes. Cymb. iv. iv. 33, I and my Brother are not knowne; your selfe So out of thought,..Cannot be question'd.
f. Mental anticipation, expectation. (Now mostly with negative expressed or implied.)
a1307in Pol. Songs (Camden) 220 Tho [= when] he wes in Scotlond, lutel wes ys thoht Of the harde jugement that him wes bysoht In stounde. 1597Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, i. iii. 30 Flatt'ring himselfe with Proiect of a power, Much smaller, then the smallest of his Thoughts. 1611Bible Ps. xlix. 11 Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for euer. 1677Hale Contempl. ii. 127, I had thoughts to find repose there. Mod. I had no thought of meeting him there.
g. An opinion or judgement; a belief or supposition; what one thinks of or about a thing or person. Phr. perish the thought: see perish v. 1 e; it's a thought (colloq. phr.): it is an idea worth considering.
1596Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iii. ii. 131 Heauen forgiue them, that so much haue sway'd Your Maiesties good thoughts away from me. 1606― Tr. & Cr. iv. i. 53 Who in your thoughts merits faire Helen most? 1613Webster Devil's Law-Case ii. i, You are false To the good thought I held of you. 1786Burns Twa Dogs 221 The Ladies arm-in-arm..As great an' gracious a' as sisters; But hear their absent thoughts o' ither. 1831Scott Ct. Rob. xxvii, What, then, are thy thoughts of the Emperor? 1855Browning Childe Roland i, My first thought was, he lied in every word. 1967‘S. Mitchell’ Come, Sweet Death vii. 63 ‘Possibly he'd had a key cut.’ ‘It's a thought.’ But I gathered from his tone that he didn't think much of it. 1974M. Hastings Dragon Island xiii. 113 ‘Did they..kill him?’ ‘Quite a thought. It hadn't occurred to me, but it's a logical explanation.’ 1980J. Ditton Copley's Hunch ii. iii. 154 ‘It's a thought, sir.’.. ‘If so, it doesn't help us.’
h. In negative contexts: not to give (something or someone) a (or another) thought, not to think at all (or any more) about, to dismiss from one's mind.
[1864Browning Abt. Vogler viii, One scarce can say..That he even gave it a thought.] 1925F. Scott Fitzgerald Great Gatsby iii. 64, I wanted..to apologize for not having known him in the garden. ‘Don't mention it,’ he enjoined me eagerly. ‘Don't give it another thought, old sport.’ 1952M. Allingham Tiger in Smoke ii. 50 If it was Martin that was on the tiles I wouldn't give it another thought. 1953H. Clevely Public Enemy xxvii. 214 ‘After your wife's death, didn't you miss this bag?’ ‘I didn't even give it a thought.’ 1956M. Dickens Angel in Corner viii. 116 There will be plenty of young men in America... You won't give this Joe creature another thought. 1973W. H. Canaway Harry doing Good i. iii. 35 I'll do that. Don't you give it another thought.
†5.
a. Anxiety or distress of mind; solicitude; grief, sorrow, trouble, care, vexation. to take thought, to trouble oneself, grieve, be anxious or distressed. Obs. (exc. dial.: see Eng. Dial. Dict.).
c1220Bestiary 682 in O.E. Misc. 22 He suggeden & sorȝeden & weren in ðoȝt, Wu he miȝten him helpen ovt. c1250Gen. & Ex. 1433 Ysaac..wunede ðor in ðoȝt and care, For moderes dead and sondes fare. c1330R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 85 Þe kyng had fulle grete þouht, his reame ageyn him ros. c1425Cast. Persev. 292 in Macro Plays 86, I stonde & stodye, al ful of þowth. 1485Caxton Paris & V. 46 Paris kyssed Vyenne wyth grete syghes and thoughtes. c1500Nutbrown Maid 119 in Hazlitt E.P.P. II. 277 To make thought, Your labur were in vayne. 1523Ld. Berners Froiss. I. ccxxxiii. 324 His wyfe..toke moche thought for his departyng. 1526Tindale Matt. vi. 31 Therfore take no thought saynge: what shall we eate? 1556Bp. Ponet Treat. Politic Power I iij b, Wriothesley..either poisoned himself, or pyned awaye for thought. 1608E. Grimstone Hist. France (1611) 270 Valentine, Duchesse of Orleans (seeing her paines lost..) dies for thought within few daies after. 1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 871 Soto died of thought in Florida.
b. transf. A cause of distress or anxiety, a ‘trouble’. Obs. exc. Sc. and dial.
1649Cromwell in Carlyle Lett. & Sp. (1871) II. 188 How many considerable ones we have lost, is no little thought of heart to us. 1887Suppl. to Jamieson, Addenda, s.v., That wild son has been a sair thocht..to his mother. 1895Crockett in Cornh. Mag. Dec. 569 So mony bairn's things were just a cumber and a thocht to me.
6. a. A very small amount, a very little, a trifle. (Usually, now always, adverbial.)
1581Mulcaster Positions xxxix. (1887) 204 The prince is a thought aboue him for all he be his brother in respect of old Adam. 1599Shakes. Much Ado iii. iv. 14, I like the new tire..if the haire were a thought browner. 1617Hieron Wks. II. 207 A wound may be giuen in a thought of time, which yet may be in healing aboue a yeere. 1628Gaule Pract. The. Panegyr. 49 They are not currant, if they want the least Thought of a Graine. 1727Swift Let. to Sheridan 12 Aug., My giddiness seized me,..I think I am a thought better. 1818Scott Rob Roy iv, He seems a thought rash. 1897G. Allen Type-writer Girl xvii, The champagne..was a thought too dry.
b. U.S. A very short length of time, a moment; usu. in advb. phr.
1912L. J. Vance Destroying Angel xi. 142 Suddenly she turned her head and intercepted his whole-hearted stare. For a thought wonder glimmered in the violet eyes. 1937in J. S. Hall Sayings from Old Smoky (1972) 122 A panther was attracted by the frying venison. In just a thought or two it came out and screamed. 1949H. Hornsby Lonesome Valley 59 Johnny loved to hear the screech owl, except that when the scream came unexpectedly it was enough to scare anybody, for a thought.
7. attrib. and Comb.
a. attrib., as thought-accent (accent of thought), thought-action, thought-barrier, thought-box, thought-centre, thought-construction, thought-content, thought-coop, thought-defect, thought-entity, thought-form, thought-habit, thought-life, thought-line, thought-manufactory, thought-mode, thought-object, thought-part, thought-picture, thought-process, thought-product, thought-production, thought-relation, thought-scheme, thought-seed, thought-shop, thought-sign, thought-structure, thought-stuff, thought-system.
b. objective and obj. gen., as thought-abhorring, thought-destroying, thought-engendering, thought-exceeding, thought-giving, thought-inspiring, thought-reviving, thought-saving, thought-shaming, thought-sounding, thought-stirring, thought-straining, thought-tracing, thought-transcending adjs.; thought-catcher, thought-conductor, thought-maker, thought-sprinkler, † thought-taking (see 5); thought block.
c. instrumental, as thought-bewildered (bewildered by thought), thought-burdened, thought-fed, thought-laden, thought-pressed, thought-unsounded, thought-winged, thought-working, thought-worn, thought-woven; locative, as thought-bound (bound in thought), thought-fixed, thought-free, thought-set, thought-tinted; similative, as thought-swift; thought-worthy (worthy of thought); limitative, as thought-tight [after airtight].
d. Special Combs.: thought-body (Psychics), see quot.; thought-consciousness, consciousness in the state in which it is during the process of thought; thought control, the control of a person's thoughts; esp. the attempt by a government to restrict ideas and impose opinions by such means as censorship and the control of curricula; thought-counter, a current symbol of a thought; thoughtcrime, thought-crime, in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the offence of failing in absolute loyalty to the ruling power; hence in any totalitarian system, unorthodox thinking considered as a criminal offence; thought-executing a., (a) in quot. 1605, ‘doing execution with the swiftness of thought’ (Aldis Wright); (b) executing the thought or intention of a person; thought-experiment = Gedankenexperiment; thought-forms pl., chiefly Theol., the combination of presuppositions, imagery, vocabulary, etc., current at a particular time or place and in terms of which thinking on a subject takes place; thought model, a system of related ideas or images; thought pattern, a set of assumptions and concepts underlying thought; an habitual way of thinking; in pl., thought-forms; thought police, in a totalitarian state, a police force established to suppress freedom of thought; spec. in pre-war Japan, the Special Higher Police (Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu or Tokkō); hence thought-policing vbl. n.; thought-provoking a., prompting serious thought; thought reform, a process of individual political indoctrination used in Communist China; also in extended sense; thought-saver, a trite expression used to save one the trouble of thinking, a cliché; † thought-sick a., sick with ‘thought’ or thinking; thought-sign, a symbol of thought or judgement, the copula of a predication; thought-stream, the continuous succession of a person's thoughts, spec. as represented in fiction of a certain kind (cf. stream of consciousness 2); † thoughtswift-flying a., that flies as swift as thought: † thought-taking n., the taking of thought; thought-ˈtransfer, -transference (Psychics), transference or communication of thought from one mind to another apart from the ordinary channels of sense; telepathy; thought-transˈfer v., trans. to convey by thought or telepathically; hence thought-transfeˈrential a., pertaining to thought-transference; thought-wave, (a) in Psychics, a ‘wave’ or undulation of a hypothetical medium of thought-transference; (b) a ‘wave’ or impulse of thought passing simultaneously through a crowd of persons or other living beings; thoughtway, a customary way of thinking; an unconscious assumption or idea; thought-word, a word conceived in the mind but not uttered; thought-world [cf. G. gedankenwelt], the amalgam of mental attitudes, beliefs, presuppositions, and concepts about the world characteristic of any particular people, time, place, etc.; thought-writing, the recording of thought by graphic symbols directly denoting ideas; ideography. See also thought-reading.
1835Woman I. 104 An idle set, a *thought-abhorring crew.
1897Anwyl Greek Gram. §40 The *Thought-Accent is the stress or emphasis laid upon a word or syllable, in order to bring out the meaning of the sentence.
1909Encycl. Relig. & Ethics II. 85/2 Purely mental exercise consists in those ‘*thought-actions’ (Denkhandlungen as Eucken calls them) which determine both our mental attitude and our conduct. 1935Thought-action [see brain-wave s.v. brain n. 6].
1958New Statesman 15 Mar. 338/3 This *thought-barrier, the difficulty of re⁓thinking the problems of defence in nuclear terms, is a very real thing. 1969Listener 24 July 98/2 It seems we are again about to ram what C. H. Rolph calls ‘a thought-barrier at least as old as the Great Rebellion’. This is the instant assumption of many Englishmen that whatever they dislike ought to be put a stop to.
1796Coleridge in J. Cottle Early Recoll. (1837) I. 199, I wandered on so *thought-bewildered, that it is no wonder I became way-bewildered.
1965J. Pollitt Depression & its Treatment i. 5 Definite features of schizophrenic illness, e.g. *thought block.
1893H. R. Haweis in Fortn. Rev. Jan. 121–2 Assume that there is something personal about us able to manifest and arrange matter, and thus assert itself after death..suppose we call that something our *thought-body... Consider then the evidence; first, for the thought-body as Double, and second, for the thought-body as Ghost.
1886Tupper My Life as Author 145 The emptying out of my *thought-box.., a most necessary relief.
1892Symonds Michel Angelo II. xii. viii. 31 This terrible *thought-burdened form.
1584Lyly Campaspe v. iv, I am no *thought catcher, but I gesse vnhappily.
1846E. A. Poe in U.S. Mag. & Democratic Rev. Apr. 268/1 We think in cycles, and may, from the frequency or infrequency of our revolutions about the various *thought-centres, form an accurate estimate of the advance of our thought toward maturity. 1890W. James Princ. Psychol. I. iv. 115 But our higher thought-centres knew hardly anything about the matter. Few men can tell off-hand which sock, shoe, or trousers-leg they put on first. 1904Thought-centre [see association 9].
1889Sir W. F. Butler C. G. Gordon vii. (1899) 188 This lightning *thought-conductor [the electric telegraph] had been used..to disseminate lies and foster gambling in stocks or horses.
1901E. B. Titchener Exper. Psychol. I. i. 1 A *thought-consciousness, our mind as it is when we are arguing something out.
1920S. Alexander Space, Time, & Deity I. 161 In these *thought constructions we are dealing all the time with ideas belonging to the empirical world. 1962Listener 15 Mar. 470/2 In science, no thought-construction about the real world can be taken as more than provisionally true.
1916L. Bloomfield in C. Hockett Bloomfield Anthol. (1970) 73 The type of sentence we have so far examined is..often used as the expression of a logical *thought-content. 1972Jrnl. Social Psychol. LXXXVI. 258 A ‘thought-content’ unit refers to all of a subject's utterance which..seems to express a single moral idea.
1935U. Close Behind Face of Japan xxviii. 332 ‘*Thought control’ in Japan is strictly constitutional. 1939R. Lehmann No More Music 87 Have you ever tried this healing by thought control?.. It seems that if you think right you'll never have an ache or pain. 1945Ann. Reg. 1944 295 Mr. Chen Li-fu, who as Minister of Education had attempted to institute ‘thought control’ for Chinese students abroad. 1954T. S. Eliot Confidential Clerk i. 33 No, Claude, he only teaches thought control. Mind control is a different matter. 1980‘J. Melville’ Chrysanthemum Chain 10 A scientist of high intellectual integrity opposed to any form of thought control.
1870Lowell Study Wind. (1886) 309 His importation of the French theory of the couplet as a kind of *thought-coop did nothing but mischief.
1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 423 The auditory and visual images of words which constitute our habitual *thought-counters.
1949‘G. Orwell’ Nineteen Eighty-Four i. 22 He had committed..the essential crime that contained all others in itself. *Thoughtcrime, they called it. 1954Encounter May 28/1 [The Revolution] first created the ‘People's Democracy’ of the Terror and of compulsory unanimity, of thought-crimes, and of denunciation as the supreme duty of the citizen. 1968Economist 22 June 19/1 If it were not the habit of Herr Ulbricht's government to put so many people in prison for thought-crime [etc.].
1637Nabbes Microcosm. i. B iv b, Dispute not..your owne *thought-defects.
1909G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy iii. 62 This..summary of the *thought-destroying forces of our time would not be complete without some reference to pragmatism.
1851H. Melville Moby Dick I. xxxiv. 253 How could I—being left completely to myself at such a *thought-engendering altitude,—how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whale-ships' standing orders, ‘keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time’.
1892*Thought-entity [see transcendentalistic a.]. 1949Mind LVIII. 340 There is present, in addition to the imagery, an entity of another kind, a thought-entity.
1593Nashe Christ's T. Wks. (Grosart) IV. 61 *Thought-exceeding glorification.
1605Shakes. Lear iii. ii. 4 You Sulph'rous and *Thought-executing Fires. 1819Shelley Prometh. Unb. i. i. 387 Trampled down By his thought-executing ministers.
1945M. Wertheimer Productive Thinking vii. 180 (heading) On movement, on space, a *thought experiment. 1965P. Caws Philos. of Sci. xxix. 218 The situation may be illustrated by means of the following thought experiment. 1982New Scientist 14 Jan. 75/2 Bekenstein considered a ‘thought experiment’ in which a box full of heat radiation was slowly lowered on a rope towards the surface (the horizon) of a black hole.
1874Geo. Eliot Coll. Breakf. P. 472 The thrill..Of *thought-fed passion.
1773Beattie Tri. Melancholy lii, The *thought-fix'd portraiture, the breathing bust.
1892Month Jan. 10 The Thought-forms with which he has surrounded himself. 1890W. James Princ. Psychol. II. xxviii. 664 Kant..insisted on *thought-forms with which experience largely agrees. 1958E. L. Mascall Recovery of Unity iv. 91 The deadlock between Catholics and Protestants..has been mainly due to their common inheritance of uncriticised..assumptions and thought-forms from the theologically decadent late Middle Ages. 1976Times 2 Aug. 14/8 Bultmann insisted on the task of re-interpreting the substance of the mythological [biblical] materials in terms of thought-forms intelligible and acceptable in the twentieth century.
1626Shirley Brothers v. iii, To clear myself *thought-free From any promise.
1939P. Christophersen Articles i. 18 The rise of new grammatical categories must be supposed to result from *thought-habits that have become so common and urgent that they demand linguistic expression. 1954Essays & Stud. VII. 66 The common and ancient thought-habit that sight is the chief and most powerful of the senses.
1729Savage Wanderer iii. 167 *Thought-inspiring Woe.
a1847Eliza Cook Summer is Nigh iv, My *thought-laden brow.
1884J. Parker Apostolic Life III. 267 The writing..is a kind of body in which his *thought-life lives for ever.
1909J. Wells Stewart of Lovedale xxxiv. 371 His strenuous life had deepened the *thought-lines on his strong face.
1855Pict. Chr. Heroism 244 Pictures of the *thought-maker at his work.
1860Ruskin Mod. Paint. V. viii. i. §14. 164 From the time of the Aristophanes thought-shop to the great German establishment, or *thought-manufactory.
1939V. A. Demant Religious Prospect vi. 145 Dialectical thought has..a kinship with traditional religious *thought-modes.
1936Wirth & Shils tr. Mannheim's Ideology & Utopia v. 247 The next factor which may serve to characterize the perspective of thought is the so-called *thought-model; i.e. the model that is implicitly in the mind of a person when he proceeds to reflect about an object. 1942Mind LI. 137 It is the perception of spatio-temporal objects, and not the conception of real entities, that is providing the thought-model. 1958W. Stark Sociol. of Knowl. iv. 193 Pareto devalues, and indeed abolishes, the relative in reality; but that means..that he operates with a thought-model which is unrealistic.
1890W. James Princ. Psychol. I. ix. 283 It will show the relative intensities..of the several nerve-processes to which the various parts of the *thought-object correspond. 1957G. Ryle in M. Black Importance of Lang. (1962) 166 It is left to philosophy to be the science of this third domain which consists largely..of thought objects or Meanings.
1937*Thought-pattern [see pattern n. 8 c]. 1943Mind LII. 123 Those elements in the nineteenth-century thought-pattern, which are frequently referred to as Darwinism. 1962N. & Q. Jan. 33/1 This strenuous attempt to convey the archaic thought-patterns of the New Testament into ‘the natural vocabulary, constructions, and rhythms of contemporary speech’. 1977T. Allbeury Man with President's Mind iii. 23 The rigid education..that surrounded all Soviet citizens..led to a thought pattern that automatically rejected anything but the Soviet official position.
1919W. Deeping Second Youth xxix. 243 The arched vestibule..and the figure of the man standing there..reminded Laverach of the picture of the Roman sentinel..at his post in doomed Pompeii, and the..crashing of successive bombs made the *thought-picture more vivid. 1963Times Lit. Suppl. 10 May 344/4 Wesley's slowly evolving thought-picture of the nature of sin.
1945Sun (Baltimore) 6 Oct. 4/1 It is an order imposing freedom of speech, thought, religion and assembly on the Japanese people, and requiring the immediate liberation of those imprisoned for political offenses by the so-called ‘*thought police’. 1949‘G. Orwell’ Nineteen Eighty-Four i. 49 He had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police after overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have criminal tendencies. 1969Guardian 5 Feb. 3/1 The Kremlin's thought-police are moving in slowly, circumspectly, on the Soviet scientific community. 1982Sunday Tel. 7 Mar. 10/2 It may be that the reviewer has confused the latter with the Special Higher Police, or ‘Thought Police’ as they are sometimes called.
1968Listener 26 Sept. 412/3 To submit to censorship..is to submit to *thought-policing, censorship being the prevention of certain thoughts and images from entering your mind. 1973Howard Jrnl. XIII. 268 The attitude develops into official self-protectiveness—restricting law books in case prisoners become litigious, for example—and downright thought-policing.
1796T. Townshend Poems 69 The musing *thought-prest head.
1889J. M. Baldwin Handbk. Psychol. I. xiv. 271 We are concerned merely with the nature of the *thought process—though a full treatment would include also its logic,—its value and bearing in the mental life. 1907J. London Iron Heel i. 18 Each and every thought-process of the scientific reasoner is metaphysical. 1981‘M. Innes’ Lord Mullion's Secret ii. 22 This was a well-trodden little path in Honeybath's thought-processes.
1906J. N. Keynes Formal Logic (ed. 4) 6 We may..say that psychology is concerned with *thought-processes, logic with thought-products. 1933Mind XLII. 111 The..view..that there must be radical discontinuity between the antecedents of a valid thought and a valid thought-product.
1884J. Tait Mind in Matter (1892) 114 Tunnelling out a theory of *thought-production.
1916J. Dewey Ess. Exper. Logic ii. 84 It..endeavours to define what in the various occasions renders them *thought-provoking. 1936Discovery Oct. 332/2 Mr Berenson..contributes a thought-provoking foreword. 1983I. Murdoch Philosopher's Pupil 323 This was the most thought-provoking observation John Robert had ever elicited from her.
1959Atlantic Monthly Dec. 75/1 xlviii. 371 In serious cases where criminality is involved..*thought reform and punishment are combined. 1964M. Argyle Psychol. & Social Probl. x. 134 Great interest has been aroused by Chinese thought reform, because it has been used on a very wide scale with considerable success and because the methods used are novel. 1966F. Schurmann Ideology & Organization in Communist China i. 47 One of the most important questions..is whether ‘thought reform’ (szuhsiang kaitsao) can produce ‘correct’ behavior in the individual. 1981J. Bancroft in Bloch & Chodoff Psychiatric Ethics ix. 174 ‘Thought reform’ techniques and aversion therapy.
1887A. Seth Hegelianism i. 36 It does not..follow that the whole external world is nothing more than a complex of *thought-relations.
1825D. L. Richardson Sonn. 24 A calm and *thought-reviving sound.
1931L. Steffens Autobiogr. iii. i. 632 They were thoughtless conservatives..whose *thought-saver was: ‘My father was a Republican, and what was good enough for him is good enough for me.’ 1948E. Gowers Plain Words vii. 55 It [sc. the word involve] is used as a thought-saver because it is so faded. 1963Times Lit. Suppl. 10 May 342/3 Those old thought-savers ‘the imagination of England’ and ‘the American mind’.
1927A. Huxley Proper Stud. 298 There are plenty of people..who feel as much enthusiasm for *thought-saving devices as for automatic dishwashers and sewing-machines. 1948Mind LVII. 259 Treating existential intuitions as the perceived convergencies of complementary *thought-schemes—the sort of structures that Wittgenstein used to call ‘hypotheses’. 1962Listener 15 Mar. 470/2 By purely logical processes of combination, inference, and construction, [mathematics] builds up the most elaborate thought-schemes.
1839Bailey Festus xx. (1848) 245 He would his brain had died ere it conceived One half the *thought-seeds that took life in it.
1813Hogg Queen's Wake 225 Still his *thought-set eye was raised To Ettrick mountains.
1605Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iii. i. Abraham 373 Your *thought-shaming acts.
1598J. Dickenson Greene in Conc. (1878) 109 *Thought-sicke louers haue onely reason their soueraigne refuge. 1602Shakes. Ham. iii. iv. 51.
1854S. Neil Elem. Rhet. 34 The *thought-sign is, also possesses its own specific signification.
1598Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. iv. Handie-crafts 304 Reinsearching God, *thought-sounding Judge.
a1774Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) II. 506 *Thought-straining fervours of prayer and devotion.
1930Wyndham Lewis Let. 30 July (1963) 191 The Ulyssean ‘*thought-stream’ method is only appropriate to the depiction of children, morons, and the extremely infirm. 1948E. Bowen Who do I Write? 23 But, of course, your monologue isn't simply a thought-stream. 1960R. St. John Foreign Correspondent xi. 225 Could I make it a vital memory for them and part of their thought stream for ever after? 1980D. Lodge How Far can You Go? i. 5 American psychologists have..established..that the thought stream of the normal healthy male turns to sex every other minute between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six.
1931O. Jespersen in H. N. Shenton et al. Internat. Communication iii. 112 Collinson..has been..driven to the view that ‘it is precisely through our individual use of and reaction to our mother tongue that we can approach these general and fundamental problems of *thought-structures and realize to the full their complexity and subtlety’. 1965Eng. Stud. XLVI. 371 He envisages an extremely..complicated Coleridgean thought-structure which is realized or clothed in a number of images.
1890W. James Princ. Psychol. II. xviii. 58 In some individuals the habitual ‘*thought-stuff’, if one may so call it, is visual. 1915New Statesman 23 Jan. 386/1 Hampered by so much ready-made reach-me-down thoughtstuff.
1595Markham Sir R. Grinvile xiv, In that same myd-daies hower came sayling in A *thought-swift-flying pynnase.
1900Month Sept. 236 The Church has used..whatever other *thought-system she has found in vogue.
1615Hieron Wks. I. 661 Exercised with a world of cares and *thought-takings. 1668Wilkins Real Char. ii. viii. 201 Anxiety, Discontent, thought-taking, dump, trouble, anguish.
1913L. Jerrold French & English viii. 153 One is often amazed by..*thought-tight compartments in a walled-up mind. 1937L. Hart Europe in Arms xv. 190 Departmentalism tends to thought-tight compartments.
a1845Hood Two Peacocks xv, As if *thought-tinted by the stains Of gorgeous light through many-colour'd panes.
1791Cowper Yardley Oak 158 The *thought-tracing quill.
a1711Ken Hymnarium Poet. Wks. 1721 II. 101 O Great I am, enthron'd on high, Of *Thought-transcending Majesty.
1898Month Sept. 232 Other perplexing instances are tortured into cases of *thought-transfer. 1901Westm. Gaz. 8 Jan. 4/2 The Psychic has only got to thought-transfer his desire for telescopic verification.
1884E. Gurney in Pall Mall G. 29 May 2/2 Our conclusion as to genuine *thought-transference. 1886Myers Phantasms Living I. Introd. 43 It was thus..that thought-transference, or telepathy, was first discovered. 1905A. R. Wallace My Life II. 310 Thought, or brain-vibrations, may be carried by the ether to other brains, and thus produce thought-transference.
1890O. Lodge in Proc. Soc. Psych. Research Dec. 461 The hypothesis of a direct *thought-transferential means of obtaining information.
1878Swinburne In the Bay xxxix, The *thought-unsounded sea.
a1930D. H. Lawrence Last Poems (1932) 24 A tremendous body of silence Enveloping even the edges of the *thought-waves. 1954L. J. Cohen Princ. World Citizenship 4 The middle-class southern English have many thoughtways, like their conception of liberty, which they do not share with Cato. 1976Nichols & Armstrong Workers Divided 19 They provide..ready-made and well trodden thoughtways (so straightaway it appears ‘natural’ that ‘militants’ will be ‘mindless’ [etc.]). 1980Times 13 May 16/4 Their Civil service advisers—whose thoughtways and corporate interest impel them in certain directions.
1891Cent. Dict., *Thought-wave. 1901Daily Chron. 18 Sept. 3/2 The Greek idea of a thought-wave, or wind of thought, sweeping through crowds.
1818Shelley Lines Euganean Hills 207 The sun floats up the sky, Like *thought-winged Liberty.
a1866J. Grote in Jrnl. Philol. (1872) IV. 66 Looking at language as it naturally presents itself, its apparently most simple units are what we call words, and therefore I describe a noem as a *thought-word. 1889Mivart Orig. Hum. Reason 106 Expressing a voluminous perception by a sudden gesture far too rapid even for thought-words. 1906Hibbert Jrnl. Jan. 277 The doctrine of the Logos, the Thought-Word in the Cosmos.
1816L. Hunt Rimini iv. 88 His *thought-working head.
1947N. H. Baynes (title) The *thought-world of East Rome. 1958Spectator 20 June 812/2 The thought-world of the laity, high and low, was in many ways pagan and magical. 1979J. Hick in M. Goulder Incarnation & Myth iv. 78 No Christian who has ever lived within the evangelical thought-world can read without emotion such lines as Cowper's, There is a fountain filled with Blood [etc.].
1846Mrs. Gore Eng. Char. (1852) 127 Sparing and *thought-worn, there is nothing in his gravity of brow to encourage indiscreet encroachment.
1859Lever Davenport Dunn ii, Thoughts of what alone is *thought-worthy.
1892W. B. Yeats Countess Kathleen 132 The tall thought-woven sails that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, rise on the air.
1890Smithsonian Rep. 50 The monographs on sign language and pictography, having as their text the attainments of the North American Indians..may contribute to the understanding of similar exhibitions of evanescent and durable *thought-writing.
Hence (chiefly nonce-wds.) † ˈthoughtive a., addicted to or engaged in thought, thoughtful; ˈthoughtkin, ˈthoughtlet, ˈthoughtling, a small or insignificant thought; ˈthoughtsman (nonce-wd., after draughtsman, etc.): see quot.
1654Gayton Pleas. Notes i. ii. 5 If he be *thoughtive or cogitabund,..his lips, his eyes, his hands, goe as well as his legs. Ibid. iv. iii. 187 The Don is indeed a more thoughtive, inward, close, and conceal'd Cocksome.
1867Carlyle Remin. (1881) II. 148 That little *thoughtkin stands in some of my books.
1858H. W. Beecher Life Th. (1859) 74 Mosses and inconspicuous blooms hidden in the grass—*thoughtlets, the intents of the heart. 1863Reader 22 Aug., Mere vendors of what may be called carefully-connected thoughtlets.
1832J. P. Kennedy Swallow B. x, A little nest of *thoughtlings about the eyes.
1842Miall Non-conf. Sketch-bk. 255 One whom we shall venture to designate a *thoughtsman for the rest..whose..business it shall be..to make himself..acquainted with truth..for for the common benefit.
▪ II. thought2, thaught Now dial.|θɔːt|
Also 7 thougt, thoat, 8 thout, 9 thawt, dial. thowt.
[Altered from the earlier thoft, q.v. with change of (f) to |x|, (the converse of what occurs in thoft for thought, thought1 and pa. tense think v.2, and thof for though). Cf. also MDu. dochte and dofte, Du. doft, MLG. and LG. ducht, whence mod.Ger. ducht, beside dial. duft from OHG. dofta. See also the modern equivalent thwart.]
A rower's bench; = thwart n.2
1622Sir R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea liv. 129 His boate fitted with Sayle, Oares, thougts, tholes, dauyd, windles and rother. 1627Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. vi. 27 Thoughts are the seats whereon the Rowers sit. 1633T. James Voy. 57 It did breake two thoughts of our Boat. 1688R. Holme Armoury iii. xv. (Roxb.) 27/1 The thaughts and seats they sit on to rowe. 1697W. Dampier Voy. round World (1699) 118 These Canoas were fitted with Thoats or Benches. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Thaughts, or Thoughts. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 341 Three muskets which were lashed under their thouts, or benches of the canoe. 1823Moor Suffolk Wds. 428 Thowts, the seats of rowers in a boat—the thwarts perhaps; or what go across. 1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Thought, an old spelling of thwart. 1886R. C. Leslie Sea-painter's Log 172 We turned-to and lashed the nets down from thawt to thawt.
▪ III. thought|θɔːt|
pa. tense and pple. of think v.1 and v.2.
▪ IV. thought
obs. Sc. form of though. |