thou

[ðaʊ]

/[ðaʊ]/ pron

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“thou” is uncommon German (frequency #64,779 among 2,684 “T” headwords), classed as a pronoun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#64,779
frequency rank, German
2,684
“T” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - du (Subjektform Personalpronomen 2. Person Singular)

Corpus desk

Index DE-thou · thou · German

thou · rank #64,779 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #64,779
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,684
  • PHOTO-FINISH Terrorismusbe…

Nearest frequency peer: Terrorismusbekämpfung (-2 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Langschwanz-Ränge nahe „thou“

Dünnes Band: Balken invertieren den Rang, seltenere Formen wirken kürzer

corpus weight

What this shows Langschwanz-Sicht: wo „thou“ gegen ähnlich seltene deutsche Ränge sitzt.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for thou
PropertyValue
Headwordthou
LanguageGerman
Part of speechPronoun
IPA[ðaʊ]
Letters4
Frequency rank#64,779
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Langschwanz-Rang von „thou“ im Deutschen

Diese Skala geht vom Kern des Alltagdeutschen (links) bis zum seltenen Langschwanz (rechts).thoufällt in diesen Seltenheitsbereich:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Die Ticks laufen logarithmisch; jeder ist rund zehnmal seltener. Seltene Nachbarn derselben Bandbreite: „Terrorismusbekämpfung“ (#64,777), „tiers“ (#64,781), „Tennisspielerin“ (#64,776). Unter 2,684 „T“-Lemmata liegt „thou“ bei #64,779. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

thou is uncommon German at frequency #64,779 among 2,684 “T” headwords, classed as apronoun, transcribed [ðaʊ]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "du (Subjektform Personalpronomen 2. Person Singular)".

thou doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct German form is thou, spelled T-H-O-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    du (Subjektform Personalpronomen 2. Person Singular)

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how thou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Bibel: Exodus 20,3)
  2. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? (Bibel: Matthäus 3,14)

Synonyms

you

Antonyms

yetheethy

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "thou"?
"thou" is spelled T-H-O-U. The IPA pronunciation is [ðaʊ].
What does "thou" mean?
As a pronoun, "thou" means: du (Subjektform Personalpronomen 2. Person Singular)
How do you pronounce "thou"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "thou" is [ðaʊ]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "thou" come from?
"thou" is a German word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar German words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "thou", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked German headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

tome#64,783URLs#64,820siem#64,712seco#64,696

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list