[Aphetic for I thank you.] A phrase used in courteous acknowledgement of a favor or service. Thank you for nothing: see THANK v. 3 f. So, So, rarely, Thank thee. Cf. THANKEE.
14[?]. Why I can’t be a Nun, 159, in E. E. P. (1862), 142. ‘Thanke yow, lady,’ quod I than.
1616. B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, IV. ii. Eith. Thanke you good Madame…. Thanke thee, good Eyther-side.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confed., I. i. Thank you kindly, Mrs. Amlet, thank you kindly.
1738. Swift, Pol. Conversat., ii. 140. No, thank ye, Colonel.
1780. Mrs. Griffith, The Times, III. 32. Sir Will. Thank you, thank you, my good friend! She is a most excellent girl, and I like to have her toasted by such a man as you.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxiv. It’s you who want to introduce beggars into my family? Thank you for nothing, Captain.
1862. Miss Yonge, C’tess Kate, ii. 24. She … said something meant for ‘No, thank you’; but of which nothing was to be heard but ‘q’ [i.e., ——k you].
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 206. [He] goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you.
b. as sb. (written with hyphen or as one word): An utterance of this phrase.
1887. Chr. World, 4 Aug., 589. He utters a hearty ‘Thank-you!’
1894. Westm. Gaz., 21 Aug., 3/3. The majority of passengers retreated from the tables regardless of their running fire of ‘thankyous,’ which were thankyous for nothing. Ibid. (1900), 6 Sept., 2/1. We had not said nearly enough ‘thank-yous.’
