Thought

How to spell thought

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce thought

What does thought mean?

1. verbThe past tense of think: to have had an idea, belief, or opinion in the mind.
2. nounAn idea, opinion, or product of the mind formed by thinking.

Thought in a sentence

• verb

  I thought I left my keys here.

• noun

  A sudden thought made her turn the car around.

• verb

  I've given it some thought and decided.

• noun

  His every thought seemed focused on the deadline.

Where does thought come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word reaches back to Old English, where the verb thencan meant 'to think, conceive, or consider' and its past form was thohte. The related noun thoht, meaning 'a process of thinking' or 'an idea held in the mind', grew from the same Germanic root that also gave us 'think' and 'thank', the latter once carrying the sense of holding someone in mind. The unexpected spelling, with its silent 'gh', preserves an old guttural sound that medieval English speakers actually pronounced at the back of the throat, a sound that has since vanished while the letters lingered on. By Middle English the spelling had settled into 'thought', doing double duty as both the past tense of 'think' and the noun for an idea. The silent 'ough' cluster is precisely what makes the word a quiet trap, since nothing in its modern sound tells you which letters to write.

How the word is built

• think (Old English thencan, to think)
• -t (past-tense / noun ending from -th)