Meaning
Nominative singular of ye (“you”).
Etymology
Origin: Old English
From Middle English thou, tho, thogh, thoue, thouȝ, thow, thowe, tou, towe, thu, thue, thugh, tu, you (Northern England), ðhu, þeou, þeu, þou (the latter three early Southwest England), from Old English þū, from Proto-West Germanic *þū, from Proto-Germanic *þū (“you (singular), thou”), from Proto-Indo-European *túh₂ (“you, thou”). cognates and usage evolution The English word is cognate with Saterland Frisian du (“thou”), West Frisian do (“thou”), dialectal Dutch du, dou, douw (“thou”), Limburgish doe (“thou”), Low German du (“thou”), dialectal German dau (“thou”), German du (“thou”), Danish du (“thou”), Swedish du (“thou”), Norwegian Nynorsk du (“thou”), Faroese tú (“thou”), Icelandic þú (“thou”), Gothic 𐌸𐌿 (þu, “thou”), Latin tu, Ancient Greek σύ (sú) (Doric Ancient Greek τύ (tú), Greek εσύ (esý)), Irish tú, Lithuanian tu, Old Church Slavonic тꙑ (ty), Welsh ti, Armenian դու (du), Albanian ti, Persian تو (to), Gujarati તું (tũ), Hindi तू (tū). The informality of thou and its replacement by ye in formal situations date only to the 14th century and come from French influence, since French (as many European languages, but not Old English) uses the second-person plural (vous) instead of the second-person singular (tu) as a mark of politeness or respect.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Antonyms
NYT Puzzle Appearances
Accepted in 13 recorded puzzles:
- 2026-07-30HEGNOTU
- 2025-08-25TAOHGLU
- 2025-08-12UARHCOT
- 2025-07-14TBRHGOU
- 2025-06-14OUDTHEM
- 2025-05-04OCTEDHU
- 2025-02-11OUATHDN
- 2024-10-31OFTHGLU
- 2024-06-21OAUTLGH
- 2024-06-03TDOHGNU
- 2023-10-26TUCOMHN
- 2023-09-25OUETNGH
+1 earlier appearances in the archive.