"T" Word Origins

thermos

Greek

Originally a trademark, from Greek thermos ("warm, hot").

thermostat

Origin

From thermo- ("heat") plus -stat ("that which stabilizes").

Theron

Latin

Borrowed from Latin Thērōn, in turn from Ancient Greek Θήρων (Thḗrōn).

thesaurus

Latin

From Latin thesaurus 'treasure, treasury, storehouse', from Greek thesauros.

Theseus

Greek

From Greek Theseus, possibly related to thesmos, the Greek word for "institution".

thesis

Greek

From Greek thesis ("a placing, proposition"), from tithemi ("to place, put").

thespian

Ancient Greek

Named after Thespis, an ancient Greek actor said to be the first to perform in a play.

Thessaloniki

Greek

From Greek Θεσσαλονίκη (Thessaloníki), from Ancient Greek Θεσσαλονίκη (Thessaloníkē), named for Thessalonike daughter of Philip II, half-sister of Alexander the Great, and wife of Cassander of Macedonia, from Θεσσᾰλός (Thessălós, “Thessalian”) + νῑ́κη (nī́kē, “victory”), possibly named for her birth on the anniversary of the Battle of Crocus Field.

Thet

Origin

A back-formation from Thetford.

theta

Greek

From Greek theta, the eighth letter of the modern Greek alphabet.

thew

Origin

From Middle English theu, thew (“way of behaving towards others, bearing, manners; habit, practice; good manners, courtesy; characteristic act; characteristic, trait; custom, tradition; established rule, ordinance; injunction; moral character; (in the plural) set of moral principles, morals; moral quality, virtue or vice; might, power, strength”) [and other forms] (often in the plural form theus, thewes), from Old English þēaw (“general practice of a community, custom, usage; mode of conduct, behaviour, manner; (in the plural) customs, virtue”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *þauw, from Proto-Germanic *þawwaz (“custom; habit”); further etymology uncertain, tentatively identified by the Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen (Etymological Dictionary of Old High German) as a reflex of an s-less variant of Proto-Indo-European *(s)tāu-, *(s)te- (“to stand; to place”), from *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”). Cognates * Old Frisian thāw * Old High German dau, thau (“coercion; discipline; tuition”) * Old Saxon thau (“custom, usage; habit”)

they

Middle English

Borrowed into Middle English from Old Norse their, the plural of a demonstrative meaning "those"; it replaced native forms that had become confused with "he".

they/them

Origin

From a common format for specifying gender-neutral pronouns in online profiles.

Thi

Origin

Borrowed from Vietnamese Thi.

Thibault

French

Borrowed from French Thibault.

thick

Old English

From Old English þicce ("thick, dense"), part of a very old Germanic word family — related to Dutch dik and German dick.

thicken

Origin

From Middle English thickenen, thikkenen, perhaps from Old Norse þykkna (“to thicken”); equivalent to thick + -en. Cognate with Swedish tjockna (“to thicken”), Icelandic þykkna (“to thicken”).

thicket

Old English

From Old English þiccet, built from þicce ("thick") — literally, a place where things grow thickly.

thickflowing

Origin

From thick + flowing.

thickhead

Origin

From thick + head. Compare West Frisian dikharsens (“blockhead”, literally “thick brain”).

thickness

Old English

From Old English þicnes, formed from thick + the noun-forming suffix -ness.

thickshake

Origin

From thick + shake.

thief

Old English

From Old English þēof, an ancient Germanic word for someone who steals.

thievery

Origin

Formed from thieve plus the noun-forming suffix -ery.

thigh

Old English

From Old English þēoh, an old Germanic word for this part of the leg.

thighbone

Origin

From late Middle English. Equivalent to thigh + bone.

thimble

Old English

From Old English þȳmel, related to "thumb" — originally a covering for the thumb.

thimbleful

Origin

From thimble + -ful.

thin

Old English

From Old English þynne, an ancient Germanic word related to "stretch" — something stretched thin has little thickness.

thine

Old English

From Old English þīn, the old second-person possessive — the ancestor of "your" and "yours".

thing

Old English

From Old English þing, which originally meant a public assembly or legal matter, before broadening over centuries to mean almost any object or topic.

thingamabob

Origin

Alteration of thingumbob: obsolete thingum (from thing) + bob. Earliest citation from 1751, as thingumbobs.

thingamajig

Origin

From thingum or thingummy + jig, metrically patterned like gobbledygook, rigamarole. Compare thingamabob, etc. Earliest citation from 1824 as thingumajigs.

thingify

Origin

From thing + -ify.

thingummy

Origin

From thingum + -y. Compare thingamabob and thingamajig.

thingy

Origin

From thing plus the informal diminutive suffix -y.

think

Old English

From Old English þenċan, a very old Germanic verb meaning "to think" or "to conceive of".

thinker

Middle English

From Middle English thinkere, equivalent to think + -er. Compare West Frisian tinker (“thinker”), Dutch denker (“thinker”), German Denker (“thinker”), Danish tænker (“thinker”), Swedish tänkare (“thinker”).

thinking

Middle English

From Middle English thinking, thynkynge, thenkyng, equivalent to think + -ing.

thinko

Origin

From think + -o, on the model of typo (“typographical error”).

thinly

Origin

From thin plus the adverb-forming suffix -ly.

thinner

Origin

From thin + -er.

thinness

Origin

From Middle English thynnesse, from Old English þynnes (“thinness, slightness of density, lack of density, tenuity, fluidity, poverty, feebleness of sight, weakness”), equivalent to thin + -ness.

third

Old English

From Old English þridda, related to "three".

third world country

French

A translation of French tiers monde, "third world", used during the Cold War to distinguish nations aligned with neither the Western nor the Soviet bloc. The economic meaning developed later, as most non-aligned states were poor.

thirdhand

Origin

From third + hand.

thirdly

Origin

From third plus the adverb-forming suffix -ly.

thirst

Latin

From Old English þurst, related to Latin torridus ("scorched, dry") — the underlying sense is dryness.