What is "thou"

Personal \Per"son*al\ (p[~e]r"s[u^]n*al), a. [L. personalis: cf. F. personnel.]

1. Pertaining to human beings as distinct from things.

   Every man so termed by way of personal difference.
   --Hooker.

2. Of or pertaining to a particular person; relating to, or affecting, an individual, or each of many individuals; peculiar or proper to private concerns; not public or general; as, personal comfort; personal desire.

   The words are conditional, -- If thou doest well, -- and so personal to Cain.
   --Locke.

3. Pertaining to the external or bodily appearance; corporeal; as, personal charms.
   --Addison.

4. Done in person; without the intervention of another. ``Personal communication.''
   --Fabyan.

   The immediate and personal speaking of God.
   --White.

5. Relating to an individual, his character, conduct, motives, or private affairs, in an invidious and offensive manner; as, personal reflections or remarks.

6. (Gram.) Denoting person; as, a personal pronoun.

   Personal action (Law), a suit or action by which a man claims a debt or personal duty, or damages in lieu of it; or wherein he claims satisfaction in damages for an injury to his person or property, or the specific recovery of goods or chattels; -- opposed to real action.

   Personal equation. (Astron.) See under Equation.

   Personal estate or Personal property (Law), movables; chattels; -- opposed to real estate or property. It usually consists of things temporary and movable, including all subjects of property not of a freehold nature.

   Personal identity (Metaph.), the persistent and continuous unity of the individual person, which is attested by consciousness.

   Personal pronoun (Gram.), one of the pronouns I, thou, he, she, it, and their plurals.

   Personal representatives (Law), the executors or administrators of a person deceased.

   Personal rights, rights appertaining to the person; as, the rights of a personal security, personal liberty, and private property.

   Personal tithes. See under Tithe.

   Personal verb (Gram.), a verb which is modified or inflected to correspond with the three persons.

thou \thou\ ([th]ou), pron. [Sing.: nom. Thou; poss. Thy ([th][imac]) or Thine ([th][imac]n); obj. Thee ([th][=e]). Pl.: nom. You (y[=oo]); poss. Your (y[=oo]r) or Yours (y[=oo]rz); obj. You.] [OE. thou, [thorn]u, AS. [eth][=u], [eth]u; akin to OS. & OFries. thu, G., Dan. & Sw. du, Icel. [thorn][=u], Goth. [thorn]u, Russ. tui, Ir. & Gael. tu, W. ti, L. tu, Gr. sy`, Dor. ty`, Skr. tvam. [root]185. Cf. Thee, Thine, Te Deum.] The second personal pronoun, in the singular number, denoting the person addressed; thyself; the pronoun which is used in addressing persons in the solemn or poetical style.

Art thou he that should come?
--Matt. xi. 3.

Note: ``In Old English, generally, thou is the language of a lord to a servant, of an equal to an equal, and expresses also companionship, love, permission, defiance, scorn, threatening: whilst ye is the language of a servant to a lord, and of compliment, and further expresses honor, submission, or entreaty.''
--Skeat.

Note: Thou is now sometimes used by the Friends, or Quakers, in familiar discourse, though most of them corruptly say thee instead of thou.

2nd nominative singular personal pronoun, Old English þu, from Proto-Germanic *thu (cognates: Old Frisian thu, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German du, Old High German and German du, Old Norse þu, Gothic þu), from PIE *tu-, second person singular pronoun (cognates: Latin tu, Irish tu, Welsh ti, Greek su, Lithuanian tu, Old Church Slavonic ty, Sanskrit twa-m).\n

\nSuperseded in Middle English by plural form you (from a different root), but retained in certain dialects (e.g. early Quakers). The plural at first was used in addressing superior individuals, later also (to err on the side of propriety) strangers, and ultimately all equals. By c.1450 the use of thou to address inferiors gave it a tinge of insult unless addressed by parents to children, or intimates to one another. Hence the verb meaning "to use 'thou' to a person" (mid-15c.).\nAvaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin, I tell thee!\n

["Hickscorner," c.1530]

Etymology 1 alt. (context archaic literary religious ceremonial, or dialectal English) you (non-gloss definition: singular informal, nominative case) pron. (context archaic literary religious ceremonial, or dialectal English) you (non-gloss definition: singular informal, nominative case) vb. 1 (context transitive English) To address (a person) using the pronoun (term thou English), especially as an expression of familiarity or contempt. 2 (context intransitive English) To use the word (term thou English). Etymology 2

n. (context dated British English) A unit of length equal to one-thousandth of an inch. Etymology 3

n. (context slang English) A thousand, ''especially'' a thousand dollars, a thousand pound sterling, etc. Etymology 4

adv. (misspelling of though English) conj. (misspelling of though English)

n. the cardinal number that is the product of 10 and 100 [syn: thousand, one thousand, 1000, M, K, chiliad, G, grand, yard]

Thou is an American sludge metal band formed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2005. The current line-up of the band consists of Bryan Funck (vocals), Andy Gibbs (guitar), Matthew Thudium (guitar), Mitch Wells (bass) and Josh Nee (drums).

Thou is a Belgian rock band from Ghent. The band consists of Does de Wolf (vocals, organ), Bart Vincent (vocals, guitar), Pim de Wolf (guitar), Bart Depoortere (bass), Geert De Waegeneer (drums), and Hans Rabaey (arrangement).

Thou is an archaic second person singular pronoun in English.

Thou may also refer to:

• Thousandth(s) of an inch, a derived unit of length used in engineering and manufacturing
• Thousand
• Thou., a reference to French botanist Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars

In geography:

• Le Thou, a commune of Charente-Maritime, France
• Thou, Cher, a commune of Cher, France
• Thou, Loiret, a commune of Loiret, France

In music:

• Thou (Belgian band), a Belgian rock band
• Thou (American band), an American sludge metal band

The word thou is a second person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in almost all contexts by you. It is used in parts of Northern England and by Scots . Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/ objective form is thee (functioning as both accusative and dative), and the possessive is thy or thine. When thou is the grammatical subject of a finite verb in the indicative mood, the verb form typically ends in -(e)st (e.g., "thou goest"; "thou do(e)st"), but in some cases just -t (e.g., "thou art"; "thou shalt"), although in some dialects of Old English (mainly in the North), this verb form ended in -s, hence the Quaker habit of using what looks like the third person form of the verb with "thee" as the subject (paralleling the usage of "you"). In Middle English, thou was sometimes abbreviated by putting a small "u" over the letter thorn: þͧ.

Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. Following the Norman invasion of 1066, thou was used to express intimacy, familiarity or even disrespect, while another pronoun, you, the oblique/objective form of ye, was used for formal circumstances (see T–V distinction). In the 17th century, thou fell into disuse in the standard language, oft regarded as impolite, but persisted, sometimes in an altered form, in regional dialects of England and Scotland, as well as in the language of such religious groups as the Society of Friends. The use of the pronoun is also still present in poetry.

Early English translations of the Bible used the familiar singular form of the second person, which mirrors common usage trends in other languages. The familiar and singular form is used when speaking to God, in French (in Protestantism both in past and present, in Catholicism since the post- Vatican II reforms), German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Yiddish, Turkish, Lithuanian, and Scottish Gaelic (all of which maintain the use of an "informal" singular form of the second person in modern speech). In addition, the translators of the King James Version of the Bible attempted to maintain the distinction found in Hebrew between singular and plural second person pronouns. As such, they used "thou" for singular, and "you" for plural.

In standard modern English, thou continues to be used only in formal religious contexts, in literature that seeks to reproduce archaic language and in certain fixed phrases such as "fare thee well". For this reason, many associate the pronoun with solemnity or formality. Many dialects have compensated for the lack of a singular/plural distinction caused by the disappearance of thou and ye through the creation of new plural pronouns or pronominals, such as yinz, yous and y'all or the colloquial you guys. Ye remains common in some parts of Ireland but these examples just given vary regionally and are usually restricted to colloquial speech.