# thinking

Pronunciation: say "THING-king" /ˈθɪŋkɪŋ/

## Verb

1. Present participle of think. — present participle and gerund of think
   - Simple: Present participle of think. Use this -ing form when an action is happening now or going on over time.
   - _They are thinking of starting their own business next spring._
   - _Thinking quickly, the driver swerved to avoid the fallen branch._

## Noun

2. The process of using one's mind to consider ideas, reason through problems, or form opinions.
   - Simple: The act of using your mind to form ideas, reason, or make choices.
   - _Critical thinking is one of the skills the course aims to develop._
   - _The new evidence forced a complete rethinking, and her thinking shifted toward caution._

## Origin

**Meaning 2** — From Middle English thinking (also spelled thynkynge, thenkyng), equivalent to think plus the suffix -ing.
**Meaning 1** — From Middle English thenkinge, from Old English þenċende, from Proto-Germanic *þankijandz, the present participle of *þankijaną ("to think"); equivalent to think plus -ing. It is related to Dutch denkend, German denkend, and Swedish tänkande.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/thinking (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).