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Origin and history of thought

thought(n.)

"act or product of mental activity," Old English þoht, geþoht "process of thinking, a thought; compassion," from stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider" (see think). Cognate with the second element in German Gedächtnis "memory," Andacht "attention, devotion," Bedacht "consideration, deliberation."

Bammesberger ("English Etymology") explains that in Germanic -kt- generally shifted to -ht-, and a nasal before -ht- was lost. Proto-Germanic *thankija- added a suffix -t in the past tense. By the first pattern the Germanic form was *thanht-, by the second the Old English was þoht.

OED quotes both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson spelling it thot. A minor or inferior one in 19c. might be a thoughtlet (1846), thoughtling (1848), or thoughtkin (1867),

Second thought "later consideration" is recorded from 1640s. Thought-crime is from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949); thought police is attested from 1945, originally in reference to war-time Japanese Special Higher Police (Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu).

I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts ; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge ; and here I will begin to mine. ["Walden"]

Entries linking to thought

think(v.)

Middle English thinken, a convergence of two Old English verbs from the same prehistoric source but with distinct forms and senses.

Thinken (1) "present the appearance of (something)" is from Old English þyncan, þincan. Thinken (2), "exercise the faculty of reason, cogitate" is from Old English þencan. Grammatically, þencan is the causative form of þyncan. The two converged in form in Middle English and the sense from þyncan "to seem" was absorbed or lost but is preserved in methinks "it seems to me."

The sense of "say to oneself mentally" (thinken (2)) was in Old English þencan "imagine, conceive in the mind; consider, meditate, remember; intend, wish, desire" (past tense þohte, past participle geþoht), probably originally "cause to appear to oneself," from Proto-Germanic *thankjanan (source also of Old Frisian thinka, Old Saxon thenkian, Old High German denchen, German denken, Old Norse þekkja, Gothic þagkjan).

Old English þyncan "to seem, to appear" (past tense þuhte, past participle geþuht) is the source of Middle English thinken (1). It is reconstructed to be from Proto-Germanic *thunkjan (source also of German dünken, däuchte).

Both are from PIE *tong- "to think, feel" (Watkins), which also is the root of thought and thank. Boutkan gives this no IE origin, rejects proposed cognates, and suggests a substrate source.

Thinken (1) in Middle English also could mean "seem erroneously or falsely" or "seem fitting or proper." It often was used impersonally, with an indirect object, as in methinks.

To think twice "hesitate, reconsider" is by 1898; to think on one's feet "adjust quickly to changing circumstances" is by 1935; to think so "be of that opinion" is by 1590s; to think (something) over "give continued thought to" is by 1847. To think up "invent, make up, compose" is from early 15c. Modern use might be 19c. I tink, representing dialectal or foreign pronunciation of "I think," is by 1767.

afterthought(n.)

1660s, "a later thought," from after + thought (n.). As "reflection after an act," 1680s. The colloquial sense of "youngest child of a family" (especially one born much later than the others) is by 1902.