thou

pron

1. (archaic, dialectal, form-of, literary, nominative, singular)Nominative singular of ye (“you”).

   “[...] Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall giue thee light.”

   “Art thou in earnest about thy soul? and canst thou tell the Searcher of Hearts, Thou, O God, art the thing that I long for? Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I would love thee?”

   “Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion!”

2. (alt-of, honorific)Honorific alternative letter-case form of thou, sometimes used when referring to God or another important figure who is understood from context.

verb

1. (transitive)To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of contempt or familiarity.

   “Don’t thou them as thous thee! – a Yorkshire English admonition to overly familiar children”

   “Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! / I am come of good kin, I tell thee! / My mother was a lady of the stews' blood born, / And (knight of the halter) my father ware an horn; / Therefore I take it in full great scorn, / That thou shouldest thus check me.”

   “[T]aunt him with the licenſe of Inke: if thou thou'ſt him some thrice, it ſhall not be amiſſe, and as many Lyes, as will lye in thy ſheete of paper, although the ſheete were bigge enough for the bedde of Ware in England, ſet 'em downe, go about it.”

   “Attorney. [Edward Coke, Attorney General for England and Wales] All that he [Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham] did was by thy Inſtigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou Traitor. / Raleigh. [Walter Raleigh] It becometh not a Man of Quality and Virtue, to call me ſo: But I take comfort in it, it is all you can do.”

   “What! doſt thou not believe that God's Thouing and Theeing was and is ſound Speech? [...] And Theeing & Thouing of one ſingle Perſon was the language of Chriſt Jeſus, and the Holy Prophets and Apoſtles both under the Diſpenſations of Law and Goſpel, [...]”

2. (intransitive)To use the word thou.

   “The hardcore role-players will wake up one day feeling, like a dead weight on their chest, the strain of endless texting in Renaissance Faire English—yet dutifully go on theeing and thouing all the same.”

   “You want to hear the word of God, and be challenged to go out and change the world. Instead, you are, for the fifth Sunday in a row, mewling on about purple-headed mountains (which is a bit of an imaginative stretch, since you live in East Anglia) and "theeing" and "thouing" all over the place.”

noun

1. A unit of length equal to one thousandth of an inch (25.4 µm).

   “We just wanted to take off a few thou, which we easily did with fine sandpaper.”

   “But to continue, "At Horwich they had gone all scientific, and talked in 'thous.,' though apparently some of their work was to the nearest half-inch. […]."”

   “All these methods remove metal and can, in fact, remove a few thou from the surface. For accurately machined parts, therefore, none of these methods are suitable but wet blasting with a fine alumina which gives a polishing–cleaning action may be operated within the required tolerances.”

   “Make no mistake, we’re talking about some major repositioning; the rear ends of the cones didn’t move just a few thou’ or even 1/4 or 1/2 inch in one direction. These beauties moved around big time.”

2. (slang)A thousand, especially a thousand of some currency (dollars, pounds sterling, etc.).

   “Whoa there, big spender — that'll cost you a few thou. Are you sure you can afford it?”

   “Butch [Cassidy] gave him 3 thous in cash 1 thous for the lawyer another thous if the lawyer wins & 1 thous for Tom O'Day.”

   “He has a few thou in the account, enough to make your everyday living expenses, not enough to keep current with the bigger bills.”

   “Well, we'll need a few thou, Carlos. Got to get together a few thou first. For rent, you know. Rent and making contacts with artists, all that.”

adv

1. (alt-of, misspelling, not-comparable)Misspelling of though.

conj

1. (alt-of, misspelling)Misspelling of though.