think

Idly, the detective thought what his next move should be.

Had we but world enough and time / This coyness, lady, were no crime. / We would sit down, and think which way / To walk, and pass our long love's day.

c. 1650, Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

(transitive) To ponder, to go over in one's mind.

"I should phone my mother," I thought.

So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills,[…]a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

(transitive) To have (some statement) in one's mind; to say to oneself mentally.

I thought for three hours about the problem and still couldn’t find the solution.

Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

(intransitive) To communicate to oneself in one's mind, to try to find a solution to a problem.

I tend to think of her as rather ugly.

Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.

2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

(intransitive) To conceive of something or someone (usually followed by of; infrequently, by on).

At the time I thought his adamant refusal to give in right.

I hope you won’t think me stupid if I ask you what that means.

I think she is pretty, contrary to most people.

Boxing is thought to be a dangerous sport.

My brother he is in Elizium, / Perchance he is not drown'd: What thinke you, ſaylors?.

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 255, column 2:

1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter IX. "The Sea and the Desert", page 182.
[…] one man showed me a young oak which he had transplanted from behind the town, thinking it an apple-tree.

Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

(transitive) To be of opinion (that); to consider, judge, regard, or look upon (something) as.

I think she’ll pass the examination.

(transitive) To guess; to reckon; to believe while admittedly being uncertain.

The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. "I thought to have lodged him in the solere chamber," said he[…]

1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

To plan; to be considering; to be of a mind (to do something).

Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 3:9:

These plants are dead.
Uh, you think?

(informal, used to show obviousness or agreement) Ellipsis of think so.

en-verb

think (third-person singular simple present thinks, present participle thinking, simple past and past participle thought)

thinks (present singular third-person)
thinking (participle present)
thought (participle past)
thought (past)
think (infinitive)
thinck (alternative)
thinke (alternative)

think all one's Christmases have come at once

think the sun shines out of someone's arse

think the sun shines out of someone's ass

think the sun shines out of someone's backside

think the sun shines out of someone's butt

From Middle English thinken, thynken, thenken, thenchen, from Old English þenċan, from Proto-West Germanic *þankijan, from Proto-Germanic *þankijaną (“to think”), from Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to think, feel, know”).
Cognate with Scots think, thynk (“to think”), North Frisian teenk, taanke, tanke, tånke (“to think”), Saterland Frisian toanke (“to think”), West Frisian tinke (“to think”), Dutch denken, dinken (“to think”), Afrikaans dink (“to think”), Low German denken, dinken (“to think”), German denken (“to think”), Danish tænke (“to think”), Swedish tänka (“to think”), Norwegian Bokmål tenke (“to think”), Norwegian Nynorsk tenkja (“to think”), Icelandic þekkja (“to know, recognise, identify, perceive”), Latin tongeō (“know”).


think

I'll have a think about that and let you know.

(chiefly UK) An act of thinking; consideration (of something).

en-noun

think (usually uncountable, plural thinks)

thinks (plural)
thinck (alternative)
thinke (alternative)


think

And whanne syr launcelot sawe he myghte not ryde vp in to the montayne / he there alyghte vnder an Appel tree /[…]/ And then he leid hym doune to slepe / And thenne hym thoughte there came an old man afore hym / the whiche sayd A launcelot of euylle feythe and poure byleue / wherfor is thy wille tourned soo lyghtely toward thy dedely synne

1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter V, in Le Morte Darthur, book XV:

And when Sir Lancelot saw that he could not ride up into the mountain, he alighted under an apple tree […] and then he lay down to sleep. And then it seemed to him [lit. him thought] that an old man came before him who said: "Lancelot, of evil faith and poor belief, why is thy will turned so lightly towards thy deadly sin?"

(obsolete except in methinks) To seem, to appear.

thinks (present singular third-person)
thinking (participle present)
thought (participle past)
thought (past)
thinck (alternative)
thinke (alternative)

From Middle English thinken, thynken, thenken (also thinchen, thünchen), from Old English þyncan (“to seem, appear”), from Proto-Germanic *þunkijaną (“to seem”).
Cognate with Dutch dunken (“to seem, appear”), German dünken (“to seem, appear”), Danish tykkes (“to seem”), Swedish tycka (“to seem, think, regard”), Icelandic þykja (“to be regarded, be considered, seem”). More at methinks.