Definition of "think"

So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills, […] a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company

Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.

2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

My brother he is in Elizium, / Perchance he is not drown'd: What thinke you, ſaylors?.

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii], page 255, column 2

[…] one man showed me a young oak which he had transplanted from behind the town, thinking it an apple-tree.

1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter IX. "The Sea and the Desert", page 182.

Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. "I thought to have lodged him in the solere chamber," said he […]

1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […]

“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Matthew 3:9

And whanne syr launcelot sawe he myghte not ryde vp in to the montayne / he there alyghte vnder an Appel tree / […] / And then he leid hym doune to slepe / And thenne hym thoughte there came an old man afore hym / the whiche sayd A launcelot of euylle feythe and poure byleue / wherfor is thy wille tourned soo lyghtely toward thy dedely synneAnd when Sir Lancelot saw that he could not ride up into the mountain, he alighted under an apple tree […] and then he lay down to sleep. And then it seemed to him [lit. him thought] that an old man came before him who said: "Lancelot, of evil faith and poor belief, why is thy will turned so lightly towards thy deadly sin?"

1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter V, in Le Morte Darthur, book XV