Thou
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, and the possessive is
thy or
thine. When
thou is the grammatical subject of a finite verb in the indicative mood, the verb form ends on
t, most often with the ending
-st, but in some cases just
-t. 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 a process found in other Indo-European languages,
thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity or even disrespect, while another pronoun,
you, the oblique/objective form of
ye, was used for formal circumstances.