dial. or colloq. [f. THINK v.2]
1. An act of (continued) thinking; a meditation.
1834. Tait’s Mag., I. 426/1. We lie lown yonder … and have time for our ain think.
1870. Mrs. Whitney, We Girls, ii. Ruth did talk … when she came out of one of her thinks.
1891. Fenn, Mahme Nousie, II. v. 73. Let’s have a cigar and a quiet think.
1896. Louise I Guiney, Lett., 3 June, in Bookman (1922), LV. 592/2. I think not, I think not, in any sense at all; yet who am I to have a think on that ground?
b. nonce-use. An idea, a thought.
1886. Maudsley, Nat. Causes & Supernat. Seemings, 33. To every one a thing is … what he thinks it—in effect, a think.
1887. G. Macdonald, Home Again, iv. A thing must be a think before it be a thing.
2. What one thinks about something; an opinion.
1835. Lady Granville, Lett. (1894), II. 187. My own private think is that he will execute another voluntary.
1861. J. Brown, Horæ Subs., Ser. II. 355. The cobbler … dispenses his ’think’ … to all comers on all subjects.
3. attrib. and Comb. (nonce-wds.), as thinkache, pain of thought, mental suffering; think-room, a room or apartment for meditation.
1892. Bridger, Depression, p. v. Each separate thinkache enumerated by my depressed patients.
1906. Month, July, 72. Castle, work-room, think-room.
1914. W. C. Bagley, School Discipline, xii. 199–200. ‘Solitary Treatment.’—in at least one modern elementary school building a room is provided known as the ‘think room’ for the reception of these cases.
