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Dictionary definition: thou
- Article from:
- The Oxford American College Dictionary
Copyright© The Oxford American College Dictionary 2009, originally published by Oxford University Press 2009. (Hide copyright information)
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thou
1
/
[voicedth]ow
/
• pron. [
second person singular
] archaic or dialect form of
you
, as the singular subject of a verb:
thou art fair, o my beloved.
Compare with
thee
.
ORIGIN:
Old English
thu
, of Germanic origin; related to German
du
, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin
tu
.
USAGE:
In modern English, the personal pronoun
you
(together with the possessives
your
and
yours
) covers a number of uses: it is both singular and plural, both objective and subjective, and both formal and familiar. This has not always been the case. In Old English and Middle English, some of these different functions of
you
were supplied by different words. Thus,
thou
was at one ...