thou

Meanings

Verb

Noun

Adverb

Origin

  • From Middle English thou, tho, thogh, thoue, thouȝ, thow, thowe, tou, towe, thu, thue, thugh, tu, you , ðhu, þeou, þeu, þou , from Old English þū,{{R:MED Online|entry=
  • from Proto-West Germanic *þū, from Proto-Germanic *þū, from Proto-Indo-European *túh₂.
  • The English word is cognate with Saterland Frisian du, West Frisian do, dialectal Dutch du, dou, douw, Limburgish doe, Low German du, German du, Danish du, Swedish du, Faroese tú, Icelandic þú, Gothic 𐌸𐌿, Latin tu, Ancient Greek σύ (Doric Ancient Greek τύ, Greek εσύ), Irish tu, Lithuanian tu, Old Church Slavonic ty, Welsh ti, Armenian դու, Albanian ti, Persian تو (to).
  • The informality of thou and its replacement by ye in formal situations date only to the 14th century and come from French influence, since French (as many European languages, but not Old English) uses the second-person plural (vous) instead of the second-person singular (tu) as a mark of politeness or respect.
  • From Late Middle English thouen, theu, thew, thou, thowe, thowen, thui, thuy, from the pronoun thou: see etymology 1 above.
  • A Misspelling of though

Modern English dictionary

Explore and search massive catalog of over 900,000 word meanings.

Word of the Day

Get a curated memorable word every day.

Challenge yourself

Level up your vocabulary by setting personal goals.

And much more

Try out Vedaist now.