[f. THINK v.2 + -ING1.] The action of THINK v.2
1. Thought, cogitation, meditation, mental action or activity, etc.: see various senses of the verb.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter xviii. 15 [xix. 14]. And thinginge of herte mine, Ever mare in sight þine.
1382. Wyclif, ibid. The swete thenking of myn herte in thi siȝte eucrmore.
c. 1460. G. Ashby, Dicta Philos., 16. Bethink in the nyght of goode ordenance, And in the day execute thy thynkyng.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. ii. 31. Has Page any braines? Hath he any eies? Hath he any thinking?
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. ix. § 1. Thinking … signifies that sort of operation of the Mind about its Ideas, wherein the Mind is active.
1802. Wordsw., Sonn., ‘O Friend! I know not,’ etc. Plain living and high thinking are no more.
1885. J. Martineau, Types Eth. Th., I. I. i. § 3. 159. Thinking is the very essence of mind, as extension is of matter.
b. pl. Thoughts; meditations, courses of thought.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. lxv. 2. A puple … that goth in a wei not good, after ther thenkingus.
1491. Caxton, Vitas Patr. (W. de W., 1495), II. 192 b/2. So oryson with fastyng casteth out … the foule thoughtes & vayne thynkynges.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke v. 70. The secrete thinkynges of theyr hertes.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, V. iii. 128. I am wrap’d in dismall thinkings.
1812. Southey, Lett. (1856), II. 283. Put together all your recollections and memoranda, I will put together my gleanings and thinkings.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, viii. All these sayings and doings and thinkings … affected him not in the least.
† c. spec. Imagination, fancy; idle fancy. rare.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 1702. Þe sweuene Of þe tweyn appullon þat fellon from þe tre in to þe water in his thenkyng.
1502. Ord. Cysten Men (W. de W., 1506), I. iii. 23. These wordes … be not made for no thynge and with thynkynge.
d. With various constructions: see the verb.
There is no thinking, one cannot or need not think.
1638. Baker, trans. Balzac’s Lett. (vol. II.), 111. There is no thinking therefore to deceive you by a shew of good.
1669. R. Montagu, in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), I. 436. Without her ever thinking of it.
1849. Clough, Dipsychus, II. ii. 195. My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking How pleasant it is to have money.
2. The holding of an opinion or opinions; judging, mental viewing; opinion, judgment, belief; phr. to († after, in) my thinking = in my opinion.
c. 1410. Master of Game (Digby MS. 182), Prol. 13. What shalbe in euery sesoun moste durable and, to my thynkynge,… oftenest most desportfull of all games.
1490. J. Kay, trans. Caoursin’s Siege of Rhodes (1870), ¶ 10. That hyt was impossible, after hys thynkyng, to fynde in all the world such instruments of werre.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., V. v. 114. I heare a Bird so sing, Whose Musicke (to my thinking) pleas’d the King.
1599. Dallam, in Early Voy. Levant (Hakl. Soc.), 11. In my thinkinge it seemed not to be above 3 myles.
c. 1775. Burke, Addr. to King, Wks. IX. 177. In … opposition to the … confirmed sentiments and habits of thinking of an whole people.
1879. B. Taylor, Stud. Germ. Lit., 143. Frauenlob, the last, and, to my thinking, the poorest of the Minnesingers.
3. attrib. and Comb., as thinking-party, -place, process, -room, -substance; thinking-cap (see CAP sb.1 9, and cf. considering-cap, CONSIDERING vbl. sb. 2 b); thinking part (Theatr. colloq.), a part in which the actor has no words to speak, a silent part; thinking-shop (humorous), a building or institution for study, as a university; thinking-time, -while, time to think, a short space of time.
1854. Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Port-folio, 129. My little queen has on her *‘thinking-cap,’ and it becomes that sweet brow passing well.
1874. Coues, Birds N. W., 527. Startled in his retreat while his thinking-cap is on, he [the bittern] seems dazed, like one suddenly aroused from a deep sleep.
1903. Daily Chron., 21 Jan., 5/4. It is satisfactory to know that the Post Office Department has its ‘thinking-cap’ on.
1898. Daily News, 12 March, 6/3. The great Benefit which is to be given to Nellie Farren next week at Drury Lane…. Some of the most famous [actresses] are content with what are humorously called good *‘thinking’ parts.
1908. Greenroom Bk., 667. He made his professional debut in 1867 in a ‘thinking part.’
1897. Q. Rev., April, 348. That remarkable series of reading-parties (or more truly of *thinking-parties).
1883. Jefferies, Story of my Heart, 74. This … was a favourite *thinking place.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 423. These kinæsthetic images … play only a small part in *thinking processes.
1862. Thoreau, Yankee in Canada, i. (1866), 13. When every house … will have not only its sleeping-rooms, and dining-room, and talking-room or parlor, but its *thinking-room also.
1836–48. B. D. Walsh, Aristoph., Clouds, I. ii. I am come To be a Scholar in the *Thinking-shop.
1890. Spectator, 19 April. It turned Oxford into an aristocratic boarding school from a democratic thinking-shop.
1884. J. Tait, Mind in Matter (1892), 99. The etherialised medium of force, which probably connects the brain with the *thinking-substance.
1667. Dryden & Dk. Newcastle, Sir Martin Mar-all, V. i. I’ll put you upon something, give me but a *thinking time. Ibid., III. i. As a whiff of tobacco … [used] in the midst of a discourse for a *thinking-while.
