thou
1 Americanpronoun
-
you,
plural, objective
-
ye,
plural, objective
-
thee,
objective
-
thy,
possessive
-
thine,
possessive
-
your,
possessive
-
yours
possessive
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
-
thous,
plural
-
thou
plural
pronoun
-
archaic refers to the person addressed: used mainly in familiar address or to a younger person or inferior
-
(usually capital) refers to God when addressed in prayer, etc
noun
-
one thousandth of an inch. 1 thou is equal to 0.0254 millimetre
-
informal short for thousand
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of thou1
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English thū; cognate with German, Middle Dutch du, Old Norse thū, Gothic thu, Old Irish tú, Welsh, Cornish ti, Latin tū, Doric Greek tý, Lithuanian tù, Old Church Slavonic ty; akin to Sanskrit tvam; (verb) late Middle English thowen, derivative of the pronoun
Origin of thou2
First recorded in 1865–70; by shortening
Explanation
The word thou, used in place of "you," is not used much in modern language. In fact, with its Biblical feeling, it’s most often used in religious contexts. Otherwise, it might be used as slang for thousand. Anyone familiar with the Bible knows the word thou means "you." As the word worked its way from Old English, it varied a little in its subtext, from a plural referring to higher-ups, then to equals, and, around 1450, as a slightly insulting reference suggesting inferiority. Today, it's used primarily by specific religious groups, or as a somewhat affected, archaic word in poetry. As a side note, if someone asks you for a thou, they mean a thousand dollars.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ecclesiastes 11:1: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 7, 2026
“When I do it, I'm trying not to be holier than thou in every way that I can. And I fail at that a fair amount.”
From Salon ● Nov. 4, 2024
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2024
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
From BBC ● May 5, 2023
O God of Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me?
From "Paper Towns" by John Green
An unpublished short story by Charlotte Brontë featuring flogging and embezzling, as well as a poem stuffed with thees and thous, have been discovered inside a book owned by the novelist’s mother.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 12, 2015
This is precisely the sort of diction that Tagore chose for the English Gitanjali, which, with its thees and thous, has so tried our patience.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 8, 2011
This mostly felicitous British rendition updates the New English Bible of 1970, shedding thees and thous and many male nouns and pronouns.
From Time Magazine Archive
Translated directly from the Hebrew Masoretic text, the new Torah leaves out Elizabethan thees and thous, shuns traditional Biblical prose.
From Time Magazine Archive
Thou four hundred times repeated— Thou and all the thous, your servant.
From The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria A Drama of Early Christian Rome by Denis Florence MacCarthy
Get thee to a department store for some soft furnishings.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 3, 2026
Like Donne, we can mine wisdom from the frailty of our mortal bodies—but be grateful that when the bell tolls for thee, plague, smallpox and typhus won’t be to blame.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
“Words cannot express what your music has meant to me. Thank you for everything, and fare thee well, indeed.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2025
Her sister Maya, 57, also spoke on thee night, saying their mother had been a "trailblazer", having set "great expectations of us".
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2024
"Nay, lad," said King Lune, "thou art my heir. The crown comes to thee."
From "The Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis
The former is known for promoting evangelism, as seen in Jesus’ directive in Mark 16:15: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
But it’s out with Barrie, back to ye old “Bohème.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2025
Burton replied: "You've never been nicked or had ye prints took anyway so doesn't matter".
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2025
Ho quoted from the Bible, Matthew 7:7—“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
From Salon ● May 19, 2024
“I think there’s a passage in the Bible that could explain it better than I could; where it says ‘O ye of little faith.’
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
The holdup is precisely what you think it is.
From Salon ● Sep. 24, 2026
It believes relaxing the law would be more popular the further down the leagues you go, where alcohol sales could potentially provide a crucial additional income stream.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
In this case, you have two limited resources: time and money.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
“Black learning spaces have always been seen as dangerous,” she tells her students, “not just because of what students do, but because of who you might become.”
From Salon ● Sep. 24, 2026
The possibility of a closed brain injury is why doctors fuss if you bang your head falling off a bicycle or crashing a car or getting hit hard in the head with anything.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
He used the Times to fight back, commissioning poems like Edward Vincent’s “Southern California”: “Time, place, opportunity, advantage are thine/ O fairest south-land.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 2, 2025
Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Shakespeare play with the line “To thine own self be true.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2022
Burns wrote: "And there's a hand, my trusty fiere. And gie's a hand o' thine."
From BBC ● Dec. 31, 2021
This is intentional, part of its strategy to allow the story to play on a field of idealism and emphasize its loftier messages of both knowing yourself and "to thine own self, be true."
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2021
To Gimli son of Glóin,” she said, “give his Lady’s greeting. Lock-bearer, wherever thou goest my thought goes with thee. But have a care to lay thine axe to the right tree!”
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
Talarico has made the New Testament command to love thy neighbor a centerpiece of his campaign.
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
Thou art risen to great estate and fortune — release thy shackles.
From MarketWatch ● May 21, 2026
I then couldn’t help but recall Shakespeare: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince. And angels sing thee to thy rest.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
The inscription on its back partially reads: “Realizing the oneness of thy self with the eternal through unified consciousness. Man know thy self.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2025
“It takes great skill to carve figures like that. Why not make a simple cross? ’Twill be fit to hang over thy cot if ’tis well made and smoothly finished.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
Put aside your hurt feelings, and focus on a plan of care for your mom.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
In the German Bundesliga, there is no ban on drinking at your seat.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
These questions can jump-start a conversation about estate planning, even if your parents don’t want to talk about it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
It also doesn’t hurt to help your mother establish a system that works well.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
It’s easy to lose your identity in a place like this, she writes.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
But they’re not going to figure out an account is yours if there’s genuinely nothing connecting it to you.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
Is the independent adviser more concerned about their own bottom line than yours?
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 28, 2026
Teach people that discernment requires looking behind the label, and eventually they may look behind yours, too.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026
Shahnaaz Khan, a PhD student at the Faculty of Education, said: "Look around you today, talk to someone you don't know and hold their pain with yours."
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
“I’m glad you’re happy, honey. I have to be honest; I was worried. Crossing the Veil is not done so often. I was afraid that husband of yours might evaporate.”
From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
