[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. That thinks; having, or exercising, the faculty of thought; cogitative.
1678. Dryden & Lee, Œdipus, III. i. A thinking soul is punishment enough.
1709. Steele & Addison, Tatler, No. 111, ¶ 1. What was the proper Employment of a thinking Being?
1800. Med. Jrnl., III. 281. According to the laws of the thinking faculty, the understanding and reason.
1864. Bowen, Logic, i. 2. The Thinking or Elaborative faculty,—i. e. the Understanding.
2. Given to thinking; habitually exercising one’s mind; having special or well-trained powers of thought; thoughtful, reflective, intellectual. (Cf. THINKER 1 c.)
1681. Lett. to Person of Hon., in Select. Harl. Misc. (1793), 461. To have an account of the sense of the thinking-men about the town concerning it.
1776. Paine, The American Crisis, II. My solemn belief of your cause is, that it is hellish and damnable, and, under that conviction, every thinking man’s heart must fail him.
1779. Mirror, No. 16, ¶ 3. Those moments of deeper pensiveness to which every thinking mind is liable.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, III. 225. The senior chief … was a thinking man, and a man of observation.
3. fig. Said of very life-like sculpture: cf. BREATHING ppl. a. b.
1732. M. Green, Grotto, 57. The thinking sculpture helps to raise Deep thoughts, the genii of the place.
Hence Thinkingdom (nonce-wd.), a realm of thinking persons; Thinkingly adv., in a thinking manner, in the way of thought; with thought, consciously, deliberately; in (one’s own) thought or supposition (quot. 1894); Thinkingness, thinking quality; thoughtfulness, intellectuality; the essence of a thinking being (quot. 1865).
1880. Q. Rev., Oct., 415. Christendom … is far enough as yet from having been replaced by the Utopian *Thinkingdom (Cogitantenthum), to which one of the modern German apostles of materialism … looks forward.
1847. Webster, *Thinkingly, by thought.
1887. Mary Linskill, In Exchange for Soul, xlviii. Quite thinkingly he sent the message in his wife’s name.
1673. O. Walker, Educ., v. 43. Contrary to that seriousnes and *thinkingnes requisite to prudence and gallantry of spirit.
1838. New Monthly Mag., LIII. 118. All men say … good things of the courage of Englishmen, the chastity of English women, the thinkingness of both sexes.
1865. J. Grote, Explor. Philos., I. 140. I recognise two manners of existence,… thinkingness and thoughtness.
