thought

• thowt (archaic)

From Middle English thought, ithoȝt, from Old English þōht, ġeþōht (“process of thinking, thought; mind; a thought, idea, purpose; decree; compassion, viscera”) and geþeaht (“thought, consideration, counsel, advice, direction; design, contrivance, scheme; council, assembly”), from Proto-Germanic *þanhtaz, *gaþanhtą (“thought”), from Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to think”). Cognate with Scots thocht (“thought”), Saterland Frisian Toacht (“thought”), West Frisian oandacht (“attention, regard, thought”), Dutch gedachte (“thought”), German Andacht (“reverence, devotion, prayer”), Icelandic þóttur (“thought”). Related to thank.

• enPR: thôt
• (UK) IPA^(key): /θɔːt/
• Rhymes: -ɔːt
• (US) IPA^(key): /θɔt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /θɑt/
• (Northern Cities Vowel Shift) IPA^(key): /θɒt/
• Homophone: thot

thought (countable and uncountable, plural thoughts)

1. Form created in the mind, rather than the forms perceived through the five senses; an instance of thinking.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

     I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.

2. (uncountable) The process by which such forms arise or are manipulated; thinking.
   • Paul Fix

     The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.

3. A way of thinking (associated with a group, nation or region).

   "Eastern thought".

thought

1. simple past tense and past participle of think