think [OE] The Old English word think is related to thank [OE] (see also star) and thought [OE]. Hasty words can land you in trouble. Think first and speak afterwards goes back to the 16th century. Another proverb, great minds think alike, dates from the 17th century. They think it’s all over is an extract from one of the most famous sports commentaries ever. Towards the end of extra time in the 1966 World Cup final between England and West Germany, with England leading 3–2, some spectators spilled on to the pitch as England attacked, thinking that the final whistle had blown. The TV commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme said, ‘They think it’s all over’, whereupon Geoff Hurst scored and he continued ‘It is now!’ A think tank is now a body of experts providing ideas, but it was originally a US slang term for the brain, recorded from 1905. The modern sense appeared in the 1950s. The phrase (on) second thoughts dates from the mid 17th century; lost in thought is early 19th-century; it’s the thought that counts is recorded from the 1930s.