definitions

train of thought

A succession of connected ideas, a path of reasoning, as in You've interrupted my train of thought; now what was I saying? This idiom, which uses train in the sense of “an orderly sequence,” was first recorded in 1651, in philosopher Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan.

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RELATED WORDS

sanity, philosophy, rationale, sense, union, interpretation, premise, thinking, argument, analysis, acumen, proposition, hypothesis, inference, coherence, argumentation, relationship, deduction, ratiocination, connection

Nearby words

trailing vortex drag, trailman, trailside, trailsman, train, train of thought, train oil, train sickness, train smash, train spotter, train wreck
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.