[f. THOU pron.] To use the pronoun ‘thou’ to a person: familiarly, to an inferior, in contempt or insult, or as done (formerly universally, now less frequently) on principle by Quakers: cf. note to THOU pers. pron. 1. Often in phr. to thou and thee, to thee and thou: cf. also THEE v.2 a. trans. b. intr. (or absol.). Hence Thouing vbl. sb. (Cf. THOWT(E v.)
a. c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 492/1. Thowtyn, or seyn thow to a mann (A. thowyn or sey þu), tuo.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 618/7. Tuo, to thuy.
c. 1450. in Aungier, Syon (1840), 297. None of hyghenesse schal thou another in spekynge.
c. 1530. Hickscorner (1905), 149. Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin I tell thee!
1564–78. Bulleyn, Dial. agst. Pest. (1888), 5. He thous not God, but you[s] hym.
1603. Coke, in Hargrave, State Trials (1776), I. 216. All that Lord Cobham did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou Traitor!
1664. Pepys, Diary, 11 Jan. She [a Quakeress] thou’d him [the king] all along.
1682. R. Ware, Foxes & Firebrands, II. 103. He … Quaker-like, thou’d and thee’d Oliver.
1805. trans. Lafontaine’s Hermann & Emilia, I. 110. When she heard the young people thou and thee each other.
1888. Liversedge, Yorks. Dial., Shoo said, Art thah goin’? Yo’ knaw shoo al’us thah’s ma. We’re owd mates.
b. 1679. Establ. Test, 23. A … Iesuit takes a Lodging at a Quakers, can thou and thee, and yea and nay, as well as the best of them.
1697. State Philadelph. Soc., 2. They were not so silly as to place Religion in Thouing and Theeing.
1883. Globe, 24 March, 1/5. In this country ‘thouing’ is a lost art.
