methought

• Rhymes: -ɔːt

methought

1. (archaic) simple past tense and past participle of methinks
   • c. 1610-11, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III, Scene ii:

     Be not afeared, the isle is full of noises,

     Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

     Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

     Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,

     That if I then had wak'd after long sleep,

     Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming

     The clouds methought would open and show riches

     Ready to drop upon me, that when I wak'd

     I cried to dream again.

   • later 17^th c., John Milton, Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint:

     Methought I saw my late espoused saint

     Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,

     Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,

     Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.

   • 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven:

     Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

     Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

     'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee — by these angels he has sent thee

     Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

     Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'

     Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'

   • 1862 February, George Augustus [Henry] Sala, “The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous; a Narrative in Plain English, […] Chapter the Fourth. My Grandmother Dies, and I am Left Alone, without So Much as a Name.”, in George Augustus Sala, editor, Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume IV, London: Office of "Temple Bar," 122 Fleet Street; Ward and Lock, 158 Fleet Street; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers, OCLC 145336762, page 304:

     And then methought my dream changed, and two Great Giants with heading-axes came striding over the bed, […]