(countable) A representation created in the mind without the use of one's faculties of vision, sound, smell, touch, or taste; an instance of thinking.
- The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
- I hate the thought of going back to work Monday morning.
(uncountable) The operation by which mental activity arise or are manipulated; the process of thinking; the agency by which thinking is accomplished.
- Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
- The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.
- What has been especially striking in recent decades, however, is the rise of new outlooks challenging the very idea of a nucleated (if evasive) inner personal identity. … We don't think our thoughts, they think us; we are but the bearers of discourses, our selves are discursive constructs. Within such frames of analysis, any notion of the ascent of selfhood is but idle teleological myth, a humanist hagiography.
(countable) A way of thinking (associated with a group, nation or region).
- Traditional eastern thought differs markedly from that of the west.
(uncountable, now dialectal) Anxiety, distress.
(uncountable) The careful consideration of multiple factors; deliberation.
- After much thought, I have decided to stay.
A very small amount, distance, etc.; a whit or jot.