þanc

þanc is an Old English noun with senses that include thought, intention, or purpose, and in social contexts, gratitude or thanks. It could refer to a mental act or to a thought itself, and it also appears in expressions of appreciation or goodwill.

The word is part of the Germanic linguistic heritage and is closely related to related Old English verbs such as þancian, meaning to thank, and to þencan or þencian, meaning to think. In writing, Old English used the letter thorn (þ) for this word, a character later replaced by th in modern English. The semantic field of þanc thus links cognitive activity with social behavior, a pattern reflected across the Germanic languages.

In the evolution toward Modern English, the concepts encoded by þanc are preserved in words such as think and thank, which emerge from related verbal families, and in the noun form thanks, attested in Old English as the plural þancas. The lexical bundle around þanc shows how cognition and social exchange were linguistically intertwined in early English.

Scholars study þanc to illustrate connections between mental processes and social rituals in Old English, and to trace how meanings shift across time within the Germanic lexicon. The term provides a compact example of how a single Old English noun can illuminate broader patterns of thought, gratitude, and language development in the medieval period.