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mind, n.1

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Forms:  Old English–1600s mynd, Middle English maind, Middle English maynde, Middle English meend, Middle English meende, Middle English mend, Middle English mende, Middle English meynde, Middle English muinde, Middle English mund, Middle English munde, Middle English muynde, Middle English myynde, Middle English–1500s miende, Middle English–1500s myende, Middle English–1600s minde, Middle English–1600s (1700s– archaic) mynde, Middle English– mind, 1500s miend, 1500s myn- (in compounds), 1500s myndd, 1500s myndde, 1500s myne (perhaps transmission error), 1500s–1600s myend; English regional (Devon) 1700s meend, 1800s– maynd (Cumberland), 1800s– meynd; U.S. regional 1800s– min', 1800s– mine, 1900s– min; Scottish pre-1700 maynd, pre-1700 maynde, pre-1700 meand, pre-1700 meinde, pre-1700 mend, pre-1700 miend, pre-1700 minde, pre-1700 myend, pre-1700 myn, pre-1700 1700s– mind, pre-1700 1700s– mynd, pre-1700 1800s mynde, pre-1700 1800s– myne, 1700s– min'; Irish English 1800s– min', 1900s– mind, 1900s– mine. (Show Less)
Frequency (in current use):  Show frequency band information
Origin: A variant or alteration of another lexical item. Etymon: i-mind n.
Etymology: Aphetic < i-mind n.
In Old English the compound gemynd   (see i-mind n.) is more commonly attested, and antedates several of the senses below.
 
The development of sense 18   is not easily explained, but compare sense 6b.
 I. Senses relating to memory.
 1. The state of being remembered; remembrance, recollection. Chiefly in phrases.

 a. to come to mind : to be recalled; to occur to a person (esp. on reflection); to suggest itself. Also †to fall, run to mind (in Middle English with dative of person) (obsolete).

OE   Rubrics & Direct. for Use of Forms of Service (Laud) in M. Förster & K. Wildhagen Texte u. Forschungen zur englischen Kulturgeschichte (1921) 55   Ic on mænigfealdum synnum bewyled eam, þeah hy ne me namcuðlice nu to mynde cuman ne magon.
a1425  (c1385)    G. Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde (1987) ii. 602   And every word gan up and down to wynde That he had seyd, as it com hire to mynde.
?c1425  (c1412)    T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Royal 17 D.vi) (1860) 22 (MED)   Me fel to mynde how that, [etc.].
a1450  (c1435)    J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) 61 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 415 (MED)   But now to mynde kometh the champioun Off Estyngland..Callid seynt Edmund.
c1480  (a1400)    St. Matthias 219 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 228   & alsa rane hyme þane to mynd, þat he, as a wykyt man & vnkynd, had slane hyr sone.
c1500  (?a1475)    Assembly of Gods (1896) 1923 (MED)   And euyn with that cam to my mynde My furst conclusion that I was abowte To haue drevyn.
1559   P. Morwyng tr. C. Gesner Treasure of Euonymus 338   We shal teache only a fewe, and suche as shall come to minde by the waye.
1665   T. Herbert Some Years Trav. (new ed.) 42   But this and other our water scapes made that saying of Byas come to mind, Navigantes, nec inter vivos nec inter mortuos esse numerandos.
1850   R. W. Emerson Uses of Great Men in Representative Men i. 26   But it comes to mind that a day is gone, and I have got this precious nothing done.
1911   J. Muir My First Summer in Sierra 142   Contemplating these darlings of Nature..Samson's riddle comes to mind, ‘Out of the strong cometh forth sweetness’.
1943   M. McLuhan Let. 26 Oct. (1987) 135   Siegfried Giedion..comes to mind now because of his conscious exploitation of ‘Space-Time’ metaphors in his exposition of architectural history.
1990   D. Shekerjian Uncommon Genius iii. xiii. 202   A line from the Talmud comes to mind: If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I?

OE—1990(Hide quotations)

 

 b. in mind: remembered, kept in the memory. to have (also bear, keep, hold, etc.) in mind : to remember, retain in memory; to recall and take into consideration, keep one's attention fixed upon (now the principal sense). See also bear v.1 Phrases 1i.Formerly also: spec. †(in arithmetical calculation) carried (obsolete), hence †to keep in mind : to carry (a number, cipher, etc.) (obsolete).

a1200   MS Trin. Cambr. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1873) 2nd Ser. 209   Listeð nu..and undernimeð hit on heorte, and habbeð hit on minde.
c1300   St. Francis (Laud) 460 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 67 (MED)   Huy hadden in muynde hou muche he was anoured er of foules.
c1325  (c1300)    Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 636   Ȝo wolde þat ire name were eueremo in munde.
a1387   J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1879) VII. 415   He dede oon dede þat is worþy to be kepte in mynde [v.r. munde].
c1390   G. Chaucer Man of Law's Tale 1127   In the olde Romayn gestes may men fynde Maurices lyf; I bere it noght in mynde.
a1393   J. Gower Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) iv. 1961   The whos knyhtnode is yit in mende, And schal be to the worldes ende.
a1400  (a1325)    Cursor Mundi (Trin. Cambr.) 6095   In mynde shal ȝe holde þis day.
1431   in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 27   Also haue in mende of ij chales.
▸ ?a1513   W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 222   Als lang in mynd my work sall hald..As ony of thair werkis all.
1550   R. Crowley One & Thyrtye Epigrammes sig. Dvi   The Lorde wyll haue all theyr iuell doynges in mynde.
c1595   Countess of Pembroke Psalme cxv. 27 in Coll. Wks. (1998) II. 185   Iehouah..us in mind doth beare.
1612   W. Colson Art Arith. in Gen. Treasury G gg 4   Which maketh 17. pence, I write 7. in a place further towards the right hand, and keepe 1. in minde.
1656   T. Willsford Arithm. 33   4 times 5 is 20, for which subscribe a cypher, and keep 2 decimalls in minde;..then say 4 times 3 is 12, and 2 in minde is 14.
1675   J. Bunyan Light in Darkness 35   This their stumble might arise..From their own not observing and keeping in mind the Alarum that God gave them at his Birth.
1780   T. Jefferson Corr. in Wks. (1859) I. 260   I retain in mind, and recur, almost daily, to your requisitions of August.
1827   B. Disraeli Vivian Grey IV. vi. v. 172   Bearing in mind the exact position..in which I stand.
1881   G. M. Craik Sydney I. vii. 154   Will you keep in mind that we have got to be better friends?
1895   Sir A. Kekewich in Law Times Rep. 73 662/2   Keeping that fact in mind.
1939   A. Clarke Coll. Plays (1963) 95   It is hard to hold The difference in mind.
1975   Verbatim Sept. 9/2   Works that purport to present accurate linguistic facts about the Celtic role in English would do well to keep this in mind.
1987   R. Ellmann Oscar Wilde v. 102   Wilde was veering away from his former devoutness, but bore in mind that his examiners were probably in orders.

a1200—1987(Hide quotations)

 
 

c. to come (also run) in mind : to occur to one (esp. on reflection), to be recalled (in Middle English with dative of person). Obsolete.

a1275   Body & Soul (Trin. Cambr. B.14.39) in C. Brown Eng. Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 31   Nou is mon hol & soint & huvel him comit in mund.
c1385   G. Chaucer Knight's Tale 1402   It ran hym in his mynde That, sith his face was so disfigured..He myghte wel..Lyue in Atthenes eueremoore vnknowe.
c1400  (c1378)    W. Langland Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. xi. 49 (MED)   Coueytyse-of-eyes cam ofter in mynde Þan dowel or dobet amonge my dedes alle.
a1450  (c1410)    H. Lovelich Merlin (1904) I. l. 629 (MED)   Thanne cam jt jn hire mynde anon that the enemy hire hadde ouergon.
c1480  (a1400)    St. Thomas Apostle 248 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 136   Þane rane hym in mynde in hy þat he vald firste quyke þam fla.

a1275—c1480(Hide quotations)

 

 d. out of mind (also †from mind): forgotten. Chiefly in phrases to be out of mind , †to go of mind , †to pass from (also out of) mind : to be no longer remembered, to be forgotten; †to set (something) out of mind : to forget about (something); to put (something) out of mind (also out of one's mind) : to ignore or disregard (something, esp. something unpleasant or distressing).Frequently in the proverb out of sight, out of mind (cf. out of prep. 11, sight n.1 10b), and variants.

c1325  (c1300)    Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 725 (MED)   Þou ssalt vor þin vnkundhede be out of al min munde.
c1390   Roberd of Cisyle (Vernon) (1930) 64   Kyng Robert lafte out of mynde.
a1393   J. Gower Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) ii. 2226 (MED)   Whanne he stod on dreie ground..He sette his trowthe al out of mynde.
c1395   G. Chaucer Merchant's Tale 2390   Now dame..lat al passe out of mynde.
a1400  (a1325)    Cursor Mundi (Trin. Cambr.) 3196 (MED)   Þi dede shal neuer of mynde go.
c1450   Art Nombryng in R. Steele Earliest Arithm. in Eng. (1922) 43   Lest any thynge sholde be ouer-hippede and sette out of mynde.
a1500   tr. Thomas à Kempis De Imitatione Christi (Trin. Dublin) (1893) 30 (MED)   Whan man is oute of siȝt, sone he passiþ oute of mynde.
a1525   Crying ane Playe 89 in W. A. Craigie Asloan MS (1925) II. 152   Ane thousand ȝere Is past fra mynd Sen I was generit of his kynd.
1545   R. Taverner tr. Erasmus Prouerbes (new ed.) sig. Dviv   Oure Englyshe prouerbe..Out of syght, out of mynde.
1557   Earl of Surrey et al. Songes & Sonettes sig. Dd.iv   As the watry showers delay the raging winde, So doth good hope clene put away dispayre out of my minde.
a1605   T. Hoccleve Complaint (Durh.) 80 in Minor Poems (1892) i. 98   Forgeten I was, all owte of mynde a-way.
1662   in R. W. Ambler et al. Farmers & Fishermen (1987) 156   Old hay... Corne upon the ground... Not seen and out of mind 6[d].
1700   J. Dryden tr. G. Boccaccio Sigismonda & Guiscardo in Fables 128   The Cavern-mouth alone was hard to find, Because the Path disus'd was out of mind.
1704   M. Henry Friendly Visits 16   Though they are out of sight they are not out of Mind.
1722   D. Defoe Moll Flanders 358   The good Man having made a very Christian Exhortation to me, not to let the Joy of my Reprieve, put the Remembrance of my past Sorrow out of my Mind.
1816   W. Scott Antiquary III. viii. 175   If they steek me up here, my friends are like eneugh to forget me—out o' sight out o' mind is a true proverb.
1819   W. Scott Ivanhoe III. iii. 87   But what now, Isaac? art dead? art stupefied? hath the payment of a thousand crowns put thy daughter's peril out of thy mind?
1878   H. James Watch & Ward vi. 112   Dear Roger, I have been extremely vexed and uneasy. I have fancied you were ill, or, worse,—that out of sight is out of mind.
1915   C. P. Gilman Herland in Forerunner June 154/2   When a woman chose to be a mother, she allowed the child-longing to grow within her... When she did not so choose she put the whole thing out of her mind.
1960   H. Lee To kill Mockingbird (1963) ii. xxv. 243   He was not out of mind: I missed him.
1987   G. Keillor Leaving Home (1989) 120   When he left five children and a wife in the middle of the night..he was put out of mind and his name disappeared.
1991   Time 25 Nov. 72/1   Many Americans found it easy to put AIDS out of mind.

c1325—1991(Hide quotations)

 
 e.
 

(a) In various phrases (chiefly in legal contexts) with time, in relation to the idea of the period or extent of time that lies within reach of human memory (cf. time of memory n. at memory n. Phrases 4). Obsolete.Earliest in time of which no mind is; similarly time whereof no mind is to the contrary , etc. Now only in particular phrases as noted below.

1343   in J. C. Atkinson Cartularium Abbathiæ de Whiteby (1879) I. 230 (MED)   Of whilk rent ceruice..the aforsayd Abbote and Couent..war seysid of tyme of whilk no mynd es.
1425   Rolls of Parl.: Henry VI (Electronic ed.) Parl. Apr. 1425 §12. m. 2   Beyng erles, of tyme þat no mynde is þe contrarie.
1455   Petition in Rotuli Parl. (1767–77) V. 337/1   The olde liberte..enjoyed fro the tyme that no mynde is.
1516   in I. S. Leadam Select Cases Star Chamber (1911) II. 107   Liberties..vsed the tyme wherof mannys mynde is not to the contrarie.
1528–30   tr. T. Littleton Tenures (new ed.) f. xiiiiv   By tytle of prescrypcyon, that is to say, fro tyme whereof is no mynde.
1641   Termes de la Ley 222   Prescription is when a man claimeth any thing, for that he, his ancestors, or predecessors,..have had, or used any thing all the time, whereof no mind is to the contrary.

1343—1641(Hide quotations)

 

 (b)out of mind: from time immemorial (obsolete); esp. in time out of (formerly also †a) mind : from a time or during a period beyond human memory; from time immemorial; (occasionally) for an inconceivably long future time, indefinitely. Also with preceding prepositions in same sense, as from time out of mind, since time out of mind, etc.

1387–8   Petition London Mercers in R. W. Chambers & M. Daunt Bk. London Eng. (1931) 35   As out of mynde hath be vsed.
1416   in H. M. Flasdieck Mittelengl. Originalurkunden (1926) 54 (MED)   Wyche tenementes..ever haue be owte of myende.
1432   Petition in Rotuli Parl. (1767–77) IV. 417/1 (MED)   Tyme oute of mynde..there were wont many diverse Shippes..to come..yn to the saide Havenes.
a1475   in A. Clark Eng. Reg. Godstow Nunnery (1905) i. 70 (MED)   All his successours bin bounde fro time oute of minde for j yerdelonde.
?a1475   Ludus Coventriae (1922) 165 (MED)   Þat blysse ffor to restore Whiche hath be lost fro oute of mende.
c1523   J. Rastell tr. Tenuris sig. A.iiiv   Ye tenure in villenage shal make no fre man villeyn if it be not contynued syth tyme out of mynd.
a1525  (▸1480)    Coventry Leet Bk. (1908) II. 460   Ther haue ben Chirchewardens..tyme out of mynde electyff yerely.
1567   W. Painter Palace of Pleasure II. xxiii. f. 193   My..slepinge body vnder toumbe, shall dreame time out of minde.
1599   W. Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet i. iv. 70   Grub, time out a mind, the Fairies Coatchmakers.  View more context for this quotation
1623   T. Scott High-waies of God 12   To follow that faith which his forefathers professed time out of minde.
1703   Acct. Theatre of War in France 3   Time out of mind, the French have been distinguish'd into Langue d'Ouy, and Langue d'Oc.
1766   J. Cunningham Poems 144   Since time out of mind..Both [actors and Jews] lawless, alike, have been sentenc'd to wander.
a1849   J. Keegan Legends & Poems (1907) 263   From time out of mind, this parish has been famous for its dances.
1898   G. W. E. Russell Coll. & Recoll. xxii. 292   A favourite theme of satirists time out of mind.
1923   G. C. Williamson Curious Survivals xvi. 244   In 1605 a charter of King James admitted that the City for time out of mind had exercised the conservation of the Thames.
1961   Times 28 July 11/4   Has it [sc. the tune ‘Chopsticks’] been handed on since time out of mind by generations of elder brothers and sisters on wet afternoons?
1991   Washington Post (Nexis) 31 May (Weekend section) 55   Her commentary..has been convulsing her descendants for 135 years. That it will continue to do so for time out of mind is partly because of [etc.].
2007   S. Sohmer Shakespeare for Wiser Sort iii. 34   Shakespeare's time-setting for Hamlet..has vexed commentators time out of mind.

1387—2007(Hide quotations)

 
 

(c) time of mind: the period of time within the reach of memory; = time of memory n. at memory n. Phrases 4. Similarly time of no mind. Obsolete.

1414   Petition in Rotuli Parl. (1767–77) IV. 58/1   By old tyme and sithe tyme of mynde.
1471   in J. Raine Corr., Inventories, Acct. Rolls, & Law Proc. Priory of Coldingham (1841) 222   The said celle and barony..wherof we and our praedecessourȝ have been peaseably possessid from tyme of mynde afor the said intrusion.
1504   in I. S. Leadam Select Cases Star Chamber (1903) I. 211   A greet Brigge..which all weyes withoute tyme of mynde hath be made..at there expens.
1515   in I. S. Leadam Select Cases Star Chamber (1911) II. 93   Bying and sellyng frely within tyme of mynd.
c1523   J. Rastell tr. Tenuris sig. Aiiv   Where you or your auncetours haue hold of me and myn auncetors after the tyme of no mynd.
c1525  (▸1407–8)    in N. J. Byrne Great Parchm. Bk. Waterford (2007) 159   The nonpaying..during tyme of noo mynde.
1527   in I. S. Leadam Select Cases Star Chamber (1911) II. 16   So hath been oute of tyme of mynd.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 591/1   This countray is nothyng so well inhabyted as it hath ben within tyme of mynde.
1553   in I. S. Leadam Select Cases Court of Requests (1898) 196   Whether it grewe first..before tyme of mynde had.
1694   W. B. Heath's Maxims & Rules of Pleading iv. 83   If the Plaintiff give in Evidence a Deed within time of Mind, the Defendant may Demur upon the Evidence.
1730   W. Bohun Law of Tithes iv. 208   A Modus cannot begin at this Day, or within Time of Mind.

1414—1730(Hide quotations)

 

 f. to bring to mind : to cause one to remember something or someone, recollect, recall; (of an object, circumstance, etc.) to suggest, to remind one of (some other object, etc.), esp. through similarity. Cf. to call to mind at call v. Phrases 3a.

c1390   W. Hilton Expos. Qui habitat & Bonum Est (1954) 11   Ȝif þou be stured to pruide..bring to þi muynde þe mekenes of vre lord Iesu.
a1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 17v   He bringeþ oure synnes to mynde, þat we schame þerof.
1427   Rolls of Parl. IV. 326/2   We Lordes..calle to mynde howe yat in ye first Parlement [etc.].
a1450  (c1435)    J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) 381 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 420 (MED)   The olde serpent..Brouht onto mynde his stat, his regalye Off tyme passid.
c1475   Wisdom (Folger) (1969) 925 (MED)   A, lorde! now I brynge to mynde My horryble synnys and myn offens.
1509   S. Hawes Pastime of Pleasure (1845) xvi. 65   Be not to pensyfe; call to mynde agayne How of one sorowe ye do now make twayne.
a1593   C. Marlowe Edward II (1594) sig. I2v   But when I call to minde I am a king, Me thinkes I should reuenge me of the wronges, That Mortimer and Isabel haue done.
a1605   R. Bannatyne Memorials Trans. Scotl. (1836) 275   Calling to mynd our former defectione.
1651   T. Hobbes Leviathan i. iv. 13   Wheras a Proper Name bringeth to mind one thing onely; Universals recall any one of those many.
1697   J. Dryden tr. Virgil Pastorals ix, in tr. Virgil Wks. 43   These, and more than I to mind can bring.
1742   H. Fielding Joseph Andrews I. ii. xi. 243   Upon which Adams presently calling him to mind, answered in a Rapture, ‘O Squire, are you there?’  View more context for this quotation
1796   R. Burns Auld Lang Syne i, in J. Johnson Scots Musical Museum V. 426   Should auld acquaintance be forgot And never brought to mind?
1816   J. Austen Emma I. xii. 225   I should not attempt it..but if you call to mind exactly the present line of the path.  View more context for this quotation
1863   C. Dickens Uncommerc. Traveller in All Year Round 18 July 495/1   Calling these things to mind as I stroll among the Banks.
1886   R. L. Stevenson Kidnapped ix. 81   I cannae bring to mind the name of your landed estate, and so will make so bold as to call you David.
1915   C. P. Gilman Herland in Forerunner Oct. 267/2   I began to try to recall some text that did say so, and could not bring it to mind.
1937   Amer. Home Apr. 116/4   The end of the room opposite the bar has a white wood dado which calls to mind in the nautical surroundings, the ship's rail.
1991   Renaissance Stud. 5 438   It is certainly not the Vitruvian Man such descriptions call to mind.

c1390—1991(Hide quotations)

 

 g. to put (a person) in mind : to remind (a person) of (something, etc.). Also with infinitive or subordinate clause.

a1500  (a1450)    Partonope of Blois (BL Add.) (1912) 2356   That canne remembraunce put [MS but] hym in mynde In wat pleyte he ys broȝthte ynne.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 674/2   Within this syxe dayes I wyll put hym in mynde of his promesse.
1549   W. Paget in J. Strype Eccl. Memorials (1721) II. 258   We thought best to put you in mind of the confirmation and revisitation of the treaty.
1587   A. Fleming et al. Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) III. Contin. 1353/1   To put vs in mind how we violate the sabboth daie.
1607   S. Hieron Def. Ministers Reasons 46   I might put him in mind, that some learned men observe Mathew not to alleadge that testimony; but to report storie wise, how the Scribes did alleadge it to Herod.
1665   T. Herbert Some Years Trav. (new ed.) 127   This being in Asia puts me in mind, That no part of the world is so subject to earthquakes as Asia is.
1712   J. Swift Jrnl. to Stella 30 Jan. (1948) I. 476   Stella used to do such tricks formerly; he put me in mind of her.
1750   J. Mayhew Disc. Submission 52   And while I am speaking of loyalty to our earthly Prince, suffer me just to put you in mind to be loyal also to the supreme ruler of the universe.
1758   G. G. Beekman Let. 23 Nov. in Beekman Mercantile Papers (1956) I. 332   If it is not done soon Please to put him in mind of it.
1786   H. Mackenzie Lounger No. 89. ⁋10   Putting him in mind where the toast stood.
1839   G. P. R. James Gentleman of Old School I. xii. 285   Pray..put my young friend, Ralph, in mind, that he promised me a visit this afternoon.
1853   E. Bulwer-Lytton My Novel I. iii. xxix. 269   You put me in mind of an old story.
1853   E. Bulwer-Lytton My Novel II. v. ii. 11   Jarvis, put me in mind to have these inexpressibles altered.
1901   M. Franklin My Brilliant Career iii. 16   It puts me in mind ev the time wen the black fellers made the gins do all the work.
1952   C. MacKenzie Rival Monster iv. 51   They put him in mind of a hayrake they were so long and so fierce.
1987   L. Goldman Part of Fortune xii. 56   William didn't have much use for other folks' opinions. He puts me in mind of my mother that way.

a1500—1987(Hide quotations)

 

2. The faculty of memory. Obsolete.

c1175  (▸OE)    Ælfric's Homily on Nativity of Christ (Bodl. 343) in A. O. Belfour 12th Cent. Homilies in MS Bodl. 343 (1909) 88   Þæt mynd, oððe þæt anȝit, oððe þe willæ beoð icwædene to summe þingæ edlesienlice.
c1175   Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 17577   Sawle. & godd Sinndenn wiþþ utenn ende. & hafenn minde. & wille. & witt.
a1387   J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1869) II. 191   Seneca..was so myȝty of mynde [?a1475 anon. tr. memory] þat he rehersed two þowsand names arewe by herte.
a1425  (a1400)    Prick of Conscience (Galba & Harl.) (1863) 774   His mynde es short when he oght thynkes.
▸ 1440   Promptorium Parvulorum (Harl. 221) 332   Meendfulle, or of good meende, memoriosus.
a1500  (▸1422)    J. Yonge tr. Secreta Secret. (Rawl.) (1898) 150 (MED)   Mynde by the whyche a man recordyth hym of thynges that byth Passid.
a1500   in Archiv f. das Studium der Neueren Sprachen (1893) 90 298 (MED)   Þe v goostly wyttis: Mynde, Vndirstandyng, Wylle, Reson, Ymaginacion.

c1175—a1500(Hide quotations)

 

 3. That which is remembered, a memory; the memory or record of (a person or thing); (now only in Scottish) to have mind of ; (formerly also in Scottish) †of good mind and variants: of fond (etc.) memory (obsolete).

a1300   in C. Brown Eng. Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 113 (MED)   Þe minde of þi passiun, suete ihesu..in herte sueteth.
c1325  (c1300)    Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 10844 (MED)   Þulke ȝer ibore was..Sir simond de mounfort, of wan gret munde is.
a1387   J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1865) I. 5 (MED)   Besines of writers to oure vnkunnynge hadde i-holde and i-streyned mynde [L. memoriam] of olde dedes.
1445   Acts Parl. Scotl. (1814) II. 33/2   Of gude mynde King James..fadir til our souerane lorde.
1489   in J. Stuart & G. Burnett Exchequer Rolls Scotl. (1887) X. 121 (note)    The charter of umquhile owre grauntsir and faider of gud mynd quham God assoilze.
1500   in J. D. Marwick Extracts Rec. Burgh Edinb. (1869) I. 210   King James the ferd of nobill mynd.
a1560   Fifteen Ois 16 in J. A. W. Bennett Devotional Pieces (1955) 170   Haue mynd of all Thi bitternes..That Thou had.
1721   J. Kelly Compl. Coll. Scotish Prov. 203   I had no mind I was married, my Bridal was so fectless.
1796   R. Burns Poems & Songs I. 70   The L—d's cause gat na sic a twissle Since I hae min'.
1823   J. G. Lockhart Reginald Dalton I. ii. iii. 232   It's as weel I had mind of that, though.
a1869   C. Spence From Braes of Carse (1898) 70   My first mind is my mother's knee.
1929   J. Alexander Mains & Hilly 113   It's my langest min' o' ma fader buyin' a pair o' beets to ma in Sin Sairs.
1955   Galloway Gaz. 8 Oct. 2   Ha'e ye no' mind o' Nancy Whitterick?

a1300—1955(Hide quotations)

 
4.

 a. The action or an act of commemorating; something which serves to commemorate; a commemoration, memorial, remembrance. Obsolete (historical in later use).

c1300   St. Edmund Rich (Laud) 73 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 433 (MED)   Creoyce þare-with þi fore-heued and þi breoste..in þe muynde of me, And þe deuel ne schal habbe no pouwer for-to greui þe.
a1387   J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1869) II. 71 (MED)   It semeþ more probable, þat þat is i-write in mynde of Marius, kyng of Britouns.
a1400  (?a1325)    Medit. on Supper of our Lord (Harl.) (1875) 196   Yn a memorand of hym with outyn ende, He seyd, ‘makeþ þys yn my mende’.
c1410  (c1385)    G. Chaucer Knight's Tale (Harl. 7334) (1885) 1906   Westward in þe mynde and in memory Of mars he haþ I-maked such an oþer [altar].
a1425  (c1395)    Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) (Royal) (1850) Luke xxii. 19   Do ȝe this thing in mynde of me [c1384 E.V. in to my commemoracioun; L. in meam commemorationem].
c1425   J. Lydgate Troyyes Bk. (Augustus A.iv) ii. 5513 (MED)   Nynus..an ymage dide make..And sette it vp for consolacioun, And for a mynde and a memorial.
a1450  (c1435)    J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) 769 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 390 (MED)   He bilt a roial toun, Which stant ther yit for a manier mynde For his arryuaile into this Regioun.
c1500  (?a1437)    Kingis Quair (1939) lxxxv. 69   Here bene the princis..In mynd of quhom ar maid the bukis newe.
1546   Wycklyffes Wycket sig. A.ixv   The breade is the fygure or mynde of Chrystes bodye in earth.
 
1893   C. N. Stubbs Christ & Econ. I. 56   Such acts of commemoration expressing in modern form the old mediaeval obit or the general mynde when the names of the good doers were read out in Church.

c1300—1893(Hide quotations)

 

 b. spec. The commemoration of a deceased person on the date of the death or funeral in any month or year following, originally by a requiem mass, and (in later use) more usually by prayers. Subsequently only in month's mind n., twelvemonth('s) mind at twelvemonth n. 2, and year's mind n.   See also mind-day n. at Compounds 2. Obsolete.

a1325   St. Anastasia (Corpus Cambr.) 114 in C. D'Evelyn & A. J. Mill S. Eng. Legendary (1956) 590 (MED)   For me neseiþ bote a munde of hure atte middel masse.
a1387   J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1879) VII. 315 (MED)   William the Rede..took his fader tresorie, and ȝaf moche for his fader mynde [v.r. munde; L. memoria].
1418   in F. J. Furnivall Fifty Earliest Eng. Wills (1882) 32   To..holde my Mynde euery ȝere duryng vij ȝere next folwyng after my desese.
a1428   in Collectanea Topographica & Genealogica (1836) III. 260   That xx s. be yeve..for holding of the mendys.
1486   in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 11   In due fourme as to a yerely mynde perteyneth.
1526   in J. Strutt Horda Angel-Cynnan (1776) III. 172   For yerely obytes, and yerelye myndes.
1545–6   R. Field Will in R. Plomer Abstr. Wills Eng. Printers (1903) 50   Item I wyll there shalbe done for me at the daye of my buryall dyryge & x masses and at my mynde dyryge and five masses and at my yearsmynde other fyve masses.
1649   Bp. J. Taylor Great Exemplar iii. 112   In the monethly minds and anniversary commemorations.
1660   Bp. J. Taylor Ductor Dubitantium I. ii. ii. 361   Upon the Anniversary, or the monethly, or weekly minds.

a1325—1660(Hide quotations)

 

5. Mention, record. Chiefly in to make mind (with of or subordinate clause). Obsolete.

c1350   Psalter (BL Add. 17376) in K. D. Bülbring Earliest Compl. Eng. Prose Psalter (1891) cx. 4 (MED)   Our Lord piteful & merciful made minde of his wondres.
c1390   in C. Brown Relig. Lyrics 14th Cent. (1924) 132   Holychirche muynde of hit maas.
c1400  (c1378)    W. Langland Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. ix. 121 (MED)   Of such synful shrewes þe sauter maketh mynde.
c1430   N. Love Mirror Blessed Life (Brasenose e.9) (1908) 49   Ȝit thowh there was so moche nede, I fynde no mynde of furres or pilches.
a1450  (c1435)    J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) 765 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 427   Blyssid Fremund,—afforn heer put in mynde.
a1450  (c1412)    T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Harl. 4866) (1897) 1723 (MED)   The bible makiþ no maner of mynde Wheþer þat pharao lay by hire oght.
a1500  (a1450)    Generides (Trin. Cambr.) 2506 (MED)   Thanne came ther in..the men of higher ynd, Of whom before the story makith mend.
1530   Myroure Oure Ladye (Fawkes) (1873) ii. 191   Holy scrypture..makyth no mynde that he was vnobedyente [etc.].
1582   S. Batman Vppon Bartholome, De Proprietatibus Rerum 435   Berosus Caldeus maketh minde of that shippe in this manner.

c1350—1582(Hide quotations)

 
 II. Senses relating to thought.
 * In uses expressing the action of thinking or the occurrence of a thought, idea, or intuition.
 6.

a. The action or state of thinking; a thought process. Also: a thought; the thought of (something). Usually in to have mind of (also to have mind on , to have mind upon , or with subordinate clause): to think of, take heed of, have concern for; (occasionally with infinitive) to be careful (to). Occasionally also to take mind to (also upon) . Cf. earlier i-mind n. Obsolete. rare (British regional in later use).Frequently used in Christian contexts for the care or concern shown for someone by God.

c1300   St. Michael (Laud) 502 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 314 (MED)   Heo hath Aungles cuynde And mai beo nouþe here and þer ase quik ase mannes muynde.
?c1350   in C. Hardwick Poem Times Edward II (1849) 34   And ȝet is ther non man That to God taketh mynde With ryȝte.
c1390   G. Chaucer Man of Law's Tale 908   Almyghty god, that saueth al mankynde, Haue on Custaunce and on hir child som mynde.
a1400  (c1303)    R. Mannyng Handlyng Synne (Harl.) 5867   Pers, I haue mynde of þe.
a1450  (c1412)    T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Harl. 4866) (1897) 4997   Þat þei þat haue of him lest þought & mynde By þis peynture may ageyn him fynde.
?a1450  (?c1400)    Lay Folks' Catech. (Lamb.) (1901) 39   Fyrst haue mende how god made heuyn and erthe.
c1450   Alphabet of Tales (1904) I. 93 (MED)   Þer was a bruther þat gretelie was turment with mynd of a womman þat he saw som tyme.
?a1475   Ludus Coventriae (1922) 226   Now mervelous mendys rennyn in myn rememberawns.
1493   Festivall (1515) (de Worde) f. 7   He shall fynde ye mynde of deth ye princypall salue of all manner synnes.
a1500  (▸1465)    Vision E. Leversedge in Notes & Queries Somerset & Dorset (1905) 9 34   By that tyme..my myndes wer not so perfit myn awne as they were byfore.
1549   R. Crowley Voyce Laste Trumpet sig. Avi   Haue minde therfore, thy selfe to hold Within the boundes of thy degre.
1560   J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. cccijv   Yt..they will haue some consideration, and mynde of hym [L. ut ipsius rationem habeant].
1589   R. Robinson Golden Mirrour sig. E.4v   Haue minde vpon thy mercy Lord.
c1605–6   J. Welsh Forty-eight Sel. Serm. (1771) 127   When thou hast mind of that eternity.
1638   A. Henderson Serm., Prayers & Pulpit Addresses (1867) 506   Our ill day may come upon us when we have but little mind of it.
1883   Reports Provinc., Devon (E.D.D.) 88   I've often had a mind upon they two men.

c1300—1883(Hide quotations)

 
 

b. out of (also without) mind : more than one can calculate or comprehend. Obsolete.

c1450  (?a1400)    Wars Alexander (Ashm.) 3018 (MED)   He had of men out of mynde many mayn hundreth.
a1470   T. Malory Morte Darthur (Winch. Coll. 13) (1990) I. 172   She wepte and made grete sorow oute of mynde.
?a1525  (?a1475)    Play Sacrament l. 79 in N. Davis Non-Cycle Plays & Fragm. (1970) 60   There myght ys withouton mynd to mene.

c1450—?a1525(Hide quotations)

 

 c. to put in mind (also in a mind) : to encourage, inspire, or provoke (a person) to follow a specified course of action.

1579   S. Gosson Schoole of Abuse f. 19v   He feared yt he should rather put men in mind to committ such offences.
1609   Bible (Douay) I. Gen. xl. 14   Doe me this mercie: to put Pharao in mind that he take me out of this prison.
1860   N. Hawthorne Marble Faun I. xxiii. 250   She saw Hilda's tower rising before her, and was put in mind to climb up to the young girl's eyrie, and ask why she had broken her engagement at the church of the Capuchins.
1990   C. R. Johnson Middle Passage (1991) iv. 83   Really, when he talked like that, with a wink in his voice, it put me in a mind to clobber him.

1579—1990(Hide quotations)

 

 7. Originally U.S. colloquial and regional (chiefly southern and south Midland). to pay mind and variants: to pay heed or attention (to someone or something); to care or worry. Frequently in negative contexts.

1916   Dial. Notes 4 269   I pay no mind to that.
1932   W. Faulkner Light in August xiii. 275   I aint never paid it no mind.
1946   M. Mezzrow & B. Wolfe Really Blues 34   It was insulting, the way they paid the rules of the game no mind.
1967   P. Goodman Hawkweed 67   ‘The fire of fertile Brigit Is going out!’ the women keened, But I paid no mind as I inclined To the dogma of the Fiend.
1971   Black World Oct. 63/2   I don't pay her no mind.
1991   F. Buechner Telling Secrets i. 28   ‘Mind your own business’ means butt out of other people's lives..but it also means pay mind to your own life, your own health and wholeness.

1916—1991(Hide quotations)

 

 8. U.S., Caribbean, and in African-American usage. A presentiment, an intuition; an idea or notion. Also one's mind : one's instincts.

1966–70   in Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (1996) III. (at cited word)   (Qu. GG12, To have an inner feeling that something is about to happen: ‘There she comes now, I —— she would’.) Inf[ormant]s.., Had a (good) mind.
1971   G. Mitchell Blow my Blues Away 147   That first mind that come to me told me, don't you go anywhere tonight... But instead of me following my first mind, I let this fellow out-talk me to bring him to Boyle that night.
1976   in R. Allsopp Dict. Caribbean Eng. Usage (1996) 259/2   If I did go with my mind I would not be here to blame for all this foolish nonsense, I would have keep my mouth shut.
1990   Advocate Mag. 25 July 4   She said that when she got over the hill ‘a mind told me to look back’, which she did, and she saw the accused walking up the hill behind her.
1991   P. Morgan High Tide in Caribbean 184   I had a mind I'd butt up with you here this evenin'.
1996   R. Allsopp Dict. Caribbean Eng. Usage 237/1   You see if I had followed my mind, I would have stayed home and so stayed out of trouble.
1996   R. Allsopp Dict. Caribbean Eng. Usage (at cited word)   When I felt the cold breeze last night, I had a mind it would rain today.

1966—1996(Hide quotations)

 
 ** In uses primarily expressing intention or wish.

 9. Purpose or intention; desire or wish; spec. in the legal context of wills (cf. also sense 11b). Now only in phrases: see sense 10.

a1325   St. Julian (Corpus Cambr.) 18 in C. D'Evelyn & A. J. Mill S. Eng. Legendary (1956) 33 (MED)   Ofte he hadde in munde Þat he ssolde fader & moder sle.
c1325  (c1300)    Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 9544 (MED)   Þo was it muche is munde To come & winne engelond.
▸ 1395   Remonstr. against Romish Corruptions (Titus) (1851) 137 (MED)   A man bounde to ertheli couetise lesith mynde to speke profitable truthe for iust men.
1480   in S. Tymms Wills & Inventories Bury St. Edmunds (1850) 59   I..by this my present testament..myne seyde mynde, wyll and entent..approue, ratifie, and conferme.
1523   Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Cronycles I. clxxvi. 213   With hym went a varlet, who was priuy to his mynde.
c1540  (?a1400)    Gest Historiale Destr. Troy 736   And þow Medea so mad, what myndes had þou þen?
a1575   N. Harpsfield Treat. Divorce Henry VIII (1878) (modernized text) 125   God's mind was to astringe and bind the Church perpetually to it.
1594   W. Shakespeare Titus Andronicus v. iii. 1   Vnckle Marcus, since tis my Fathers minde, That I repaire to Rome I am content.  View more context for this quotation
1597   F. Bacon Ess. f. 6   Manie ill matters are vndertaken, and many good matters with ill mindes.
1656   in T. Burton Diary (1828) I. 302   To enquire with what mind this was done.
1667   J. Milton Paradise Lost v. 452   Sudden mind arose In Adam, not to let th' occasion pass.  View more context for this quotation

a1325—1667(Hide quotations)

 
 10. Phrases.

 a. to be of (also in) (a) mind (now usually to be of a mind ): to be disposed or minded, to purpose, desire (to do something); (occasionally) to be in great mind (also of good mind or in a good mind) (cf. sense 11). of mind: with purpose, or intending (to do something). to bring (also get, etc.) in mind : to persuade. to have (something) in mind : to intend, plan, or determine to do (something).

a1325 [see sense 9].
c1450  (?a1400)    Wars Alexander (Ashm.) 1254   Sire Meliager [was] in gret mynd a man out to sende To ser Alexander.
1523   Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Cronycles I. ccccli. 796   Wherof complayntes came to the heryng of the duke of Berrey, who was in mynde to remedy it.
a1535   T. More Hist. Richard III in Wks. (1557) 41/1   He secretly..caused the Quene to be perswaded and brought in the mynd, that it..shold be ieopardous, the king to come vp strong.
1563   in J. D. Marwick Extracts Rec. Burgh Edinb. (1875) III. 166   The said abbot wes of mynde to dispone..the kirk place [etc.].
c1580  (▸1505)    in J. D. Marwick Extracts Rec. Burgh Edinb. (1869) I. 102   We ar and ever was of gude mynde till do this gude tovne..plesour.
1586   Let. Earle Leycester 13   Neither did I it of minde to circumvent her.
1599   in D. Masson Reg. Privy Council Scotl. (1884) 1st Ser. VI. 40   His Majestie being of gude mynd that the said Sir George be satisfeit of the saidis debursmentis, as ressone requyris.
a1617   P. Baynes Lectures 233 in Comm. First & Second Chapters Colossians (1634)    Pharaoh [was] in a good minde, as wee say, to let the people goe.
1632   in R. S. France Thievely Lead Mines, 1629–35 (1951) 151   [They] would..have confederated..with Godfrey Mercer for his grove, haveinge gotten Casson in a mynde for his.
1661   C. Lyttelton in E. M. Thompson Corr. Family of Hatton (1878) I. 24   I doe not find my brother of the mind he seemed at first to be of to buy it.
1764   H. Bostwick Let. 10 Dec. in Beekman Mercantile Papers (1956) II. 953   The Indions Said they had maid peas but we was a mind to starve them.
1779   W. Cowper Hypocrisy Detected 12   They..set their wit at work to find What the prophet had in mind.
1814   Gonzanga ii. i, in J. Galt New Brit. Theatre III. 113   Oh lud! if I can but get her in the mind to have me.
1840   R. H. Dana Two Years before Mast vi. 49   The sail-maker was a Fin, and could do anything he was of a mind to.
1865   Harper's Mag. Oct. 674/2   If the Supreme Court was a mind to make a fool of itself, that was no reason that his court should.
1876   W. Minturn George Douglas (typescript) ii. i. 13   ‘I can eat all you're likely to kill in this campaign.’ ‘Then yeou may if you're a mind tew.’
1877   H. James American vii. 135   ‘I have something better in mind,’ he said; ‘come home with me and finish the evening before my fire.’
a1911   D. G. Phillips Susan Lenox (1917) II. xv. 358   The next morning Susan went shopping. She had it in mind to get the materials for a costume of a certain delicate shade of violet.
1949   H. Preece 6 Mar. in B. A. Botkin Treasury Southern Folklore (1949) ii. iv. 340   Britt Bailey had a mighty fine property..and he was no mind to get out of Texas.
1965   B. Behan Confessions Irish Rebel (1967) 157   I wasn't in mind to be asking further.
1986   J. Nagenda Seasons of T. Tebo ii. iii. 64   We could all do it if we were of a mind to.
1996   Earth Matters Autumn 18/1   I've always been a scribbler—all my family were journalists, and I had in mind to be one, too.

a1325—1996(Hide quotations)

 
 

b. to fulfil one's mind (also to bring one's mind to pass) : to accomplish one's purpose, satisfy one's desire. to have (also obtain) one's mind : to get what one wants. for one's mind's sake : in order to gratify one's whim. Obsolete.

?1503–5   H. Watson tr. Valentine & Orson (1937) 142.3   I am redy and apparaylled to fulfyll your mynde & obeye to your commanndementes.
1509   S. Hawes Pastime of Pleasure (1845) xvi. 75   Longynge ryght sore my mynde to fulfyll.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 499/1   It shall coste me a fall, but I wyll have my mynde.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 865/1   For my myndes sake, pour satisfaire a ma phantasie.
1561   F. Coxe Short Treat. Wickednesse Magicall Sci. sig. Aviijv   Then doeth he fulfill the mynd of the exsorcist, for oneles he hath it, he will neither doe, neither speake any thinge.
1598   F. Rous Thule ii. sig. N 2v   And she as women wont will haue her minde.
1614   W. Raleigh Hist. World i. v. iv. §1. 585   This war he vndertooke as it were for his mindes sake: hauing receiued no iniurie.
1671   H. M. tr. Erasmus Colloquies 82   Because I see that thou dost so earnestly desire it, I will fulfil thy mind as well as I can.
1675   W. Dugdale Baronage Eng. I. 320/1   He..ordained, that..his Fathers mind should therein be fulfilled: and added five more Secular Priests in the stead of five Monks which had wont to be there.

?1503—1675(Hide quotations)

 
 

c. by (also according to) the mind of (a person): by the direction of. Obsolete.

1523–4   in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 322   Paid to the Orgon maker by þe mynde of Mr person for mendyng the Orgons, iij s iiij d.
1618   in J. Barmby Churchwardens' Accts. Pittington (1888) 74   Item more they receyved which was given by William Ord, and lent to fower poore folk according to his minde, xl s.

1523—1618(Hide quotations)

 

 d. to be of (occasionally in) many (also †divers) minds : to waver in purpose, to be indecisive. to be in (also of, occasionally on) two minds (also in twenty minds, in (also of) several minds, etc.) : to vacillate, to be undecided.

1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 428/1   I am of dyverse myndes, je me varie... I wolde be glad to deale with hym, but the man is of so dyverse myndes that there is no holde at hym.
1674   tr. N. Machiavelli Florentine Hist. ii. 29   The people were in many minds, some would needs fight as a thing that must one day be done, and therefore it was better to do it now.
1738   J. Swift Compl. Coll. Genteel Conversat. 55   You'll never be mad, you are of so many Minds.
1751   R. Paltock Life Peter Wilkins I. xxi. 203   I was in twenty Minds whether to take her first, and then catch the Chickens, or to let her go off, and then clap upon them.
1850   C. Dickens David Copperfield xxv. 257   This missive (which I was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was out of my hands).
1850   C. Dickens David Copperfield xli. 417   I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day.
1853   C. Dickens Child's Hist. Eng. II. xxii. 171   Jack [Cade]..was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon.
1881   E. D. Brickwood in Encycl. Brit. XII. 197/2   However bold the horse may be, he will soon refuse water if his rider be perpetually in two minds when approaching a brook.
1910   J. London Wit of Porportuk in Lost Face 238   When I came among you..I was of one mind. As I listened..I was of many minds. Now am I of one mind again.
1922   J. Joyce Ulysses ii. xii. [Cyclops] 280   I'm on two minds not to give that fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and ladders.
1952   M. Laski Village i. 13   I was in two minds whether to come or not.
1989   Business Traveller June 45/3   He considered the whole thing odd in the extreme and in fact was of two minds whether to believe me or not.
2000   Independent (Electronic ed.) 13 Feb. 24   The Labour Party has long been of two minds about devolution.

1530—2000(Hide quotations)

 

 e. to know one's own mind : to form and adhere to a decision or purpose without vacillating; to be confident and decisive.to make up one's mind: see to make up one's mind at make v.1 Phrasal verbs 1.

1658   H. Crompton Pierides 46   Surely these knowing times and you scarce find A man that rightly knoweth his own mind.
1697   J. Vanbrugh Relapse iii. 47   Is it then so hard a Matter to decide? I thought all people had been acquainted with their own Bodies, though few People know their own minds.
1745   E. Haywood Female Spectator I. 14   I cannot approve of hasty Marriages, or before Persons are of sufficient Years to be supposed capable of knowing their own Minds.
1778   A. Murphy (title)    Know your own Mind.
1823   W. Scott St. Ronan's Well I. xii. 270   The report..that the young Earl of Etherington..intended to pass an hour, or a day, or a week, as it might happen, (for his lordship could not be supposed to know his own mind,) at St Ronan's Well.
1864   Ld. Tennyson Enoch Arden in Enoch Arden, etc. 26   And others laugh'd at her and Philip too, As simple folk that knew not their own minds.
1888   Poor Nellie 299   It is to be hoped he knows his own mind this time, and does not intend chopping and changing about again.
1922   J. Joyce Ulysses iii. xvi. [Eumaeus] 609   Pretending to understand everything,..and in reality not knowing their own minds.
1935   Punch 10 Apr. 399/2   Say, she knew her own mind, did that Jane. A regular humdinger of a dame.
1991   Whole Earth Rev. Summer 29/3   By combining representative feedback with an informative documentary..a community can know its own mind with a high degree of accuracy on the key issues of the day.

1658—1991(Hide quotations)

 
 11.   to have a mind   phr.
 

a. With a subordinate clause. To wish, desire, intend. Also in negative construction to have no mind . Obsolete.

a1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 72v   Forȝetful & vnkonnynge, he haþ no mynde þat he schal ȝeue to his lord acountes of his outrage.
1673   W. Temple Observ. United Provinces ii. 95   They had no mind that Her Ambassador should be present.
1705   W. Penn in Mem. Hist. Soc. Pennsylvania (1872) X. 65   I believe he had no mind it should be done whilst I was there.
1732   H. Fielding Mock Doctor 5   Suppose I've a mind he should drub, Whose bones are they, Sir, he's to lick?
1750–2   Bible (Challoner) 2 Chron. xxix. 10   Now therefore I have a mind that we make a covenant with the Lord the God of Israel.
1818   W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian v, in Tales of my Landlord 2nd Ser. III. 138   Have ye a mind I should scour my knife between your ribs, as my mother says?
1845   R. Browning Flight of Duchess vi, in Bells & Pomegranates No. VII: Dramatic Romances & Lyrics 13/2   The Duke had a mind we should cut a figure.

a1398—1845(Hide quotations)

 

 b. With infinitive. To wish, desire, intend or be inclined (to do something). Now usually with premodifying adjective, most commonly to have a good (also great) mind : to be strongly disposed or inclined (to do something). to have half a mind : to have nearly made up one's mind (to do something). to have two minds : to be undecided (whether to do something) (cf. sense 10d). Similarly to have no mind (now somewhat archaic).The form I'm (also I've) a good mind (also half a mind, etc.) is still current in British and U.S. regional use.

a1400   in T. Wright & J. O. Halliwell Reliquiæ Antiquæ (1845) II. 44   For the greet mynde that he hath to done his maystris wille.
a1563   J. Bale King Johan (1969) i. 304   I haue a great mynd to be a lecherovs man.
1639   J. Shirley Ball iii. sig. D3v   Harke you Mounsieur, this gentleman has a great Minde to learne to dance.
?c1663   B. Whitelocke Diary (1990) 392   Wh[itelocke] was importuned by his daughter Pryce..to come into Wales this Summer, & he had a good minde to it.
1666   Bp. S. Parker Free Censvre Platonick Philos. (1667) 181   And now I have a mind to set up for a Maker of Hypotheses.
1704   Clarendon's Hist. Rebellion III. xiii. 364   The Duke of Lorraine had a very good mind to get footing in Ireland.
1726   G. Shelvocke Voy. round World xvi. 452   They had half a mind to refuse me a passage.
1754   S. Johnson Let. 28 Nov. in Corr. (1995) i. 29   Would a letter give him any pleasure; I have a mind to write.
1819   Ld. Byron Let. 5 July (1976) VI. 176   I have half a mind to go back in search of La Fanchette.
1823   Ld. Byron Let. 28 Mar. (1980) X. 131   I had a great mind to send you his unpaid bills.
1833   L. Ritchie Wanderings by Loire 26   It was lucky for us that we did not follow the nuptial procession (which we had more than half a mind to do).
1852   R. S. Surtees Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour ii. xii. 60   I'm a good mind to have his throat cut.
1858   Wilhelmina in T. Carlyle Hist. Friedrich II of Prussia II. vi. ii. 19   My Brother and I had all the mind in the world to laugh.
1870   J. E. T. Rogers Hist. Gleanings 2nd Ser. 102   He had little mind to be a martyr, but he had still less a mind to be a knave.
1876   E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest (ed. 2) IV. xvii. 54   He had no mind to be a mere conqueror.
1879   T. H. Sayre Strategist (MS) ii. 22   The old man is feeble and rheumatic. I've a good mind to lick him, and get square with his son.
1882   Cent. Mag. July 341/1   ‘This one,’ he went on slowly, taking up a soft, blue merino, ‘I'm half a mind to put back in the drawer.’
1888   ‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms II. xii. 205   We'd two minds to camp on the mountain.
1923   W. S. Maugham Our Betters ii. 111   I've got half a mind to get the people..to copy it.
1930   G. B. Johnson in B. A. Botkin Treasury Southern Folklore (1949) iv. iii. 698   ‘I'm a good mind to whup you,’ says a Negro mother to her son.
1975   L. Gillen Return to Deepwater iv. 61   I'd a mind to show Miss McCourt the portrait, sir.
1996   F. McCourt Angela's Ashes (1997) viii. 221   I have a good mind to report you to Sister Rita.

a1400—1996(Hide quotations)

 

 c. With to and noun. †To have a favourable disposition towards (a person) (obsolete); to have a liking for (an occupation, task, etc.); to want, desire, wish to possess or obtain (something). Now somewhat archaic.

1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 580/1   I have a mynde to one, I have a favoure to hym.
1605   London Prodigall i. ii   I have a great mind to this gentleman in the way of Marriage.
1631   B. Jonson Divell is Asse i. ii. 29 in Wks. II   They doe say, H'will meet a man (of himselfe) that has a mind to him. If hee would so, I haue a minde and a halfe for him.
1674   S. Butler Hudibras (new ed.) i. i. 14   That..Compound for Sins, they are inclin'd to, By damning those they have no mind to.
1683   W. Temple Mem. in Wks. (1731) I. 457   I never had less mind to any Journey in my Life.
1711   R. Steele Spectator No. 145. ⁋6   There visits among us an old Batchelor whom each of us has a Mind to.
1726   J. Swift Gulliver I. ii. ii. 31   In a few Days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.
1761   H. Walpole Let. 16 Apr. in Corr. (1941) X. 235   Have you a mind to some doe venison?
1876   ‘G. Eliot’ Daniel Deronda IV. viii. lviii. 169   The blacksmith said to me the other day that his 'prentice had no mind to his trade.
1934   R. Macaulay Milton ii. 34   By this time Milton had no mind to the ministry; he wanted..to devote himself to literature and to poetry.

1530—1934(Hide quotations)

 

 d. With for, †of. To wish for, desire.

1553   tr. Erasmus Epist. Perswade Young Ientleman Mariage in T. Wilson Arte of Rhetorique i. f. 26   Thus we se plainelye, that suche a one as hathe no minde of Mariage, semeth to be no manne, but rather a Stone, an enemye to Nature, a rebel to God him selfe.
1600   W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice ii. v. 37   By Iacobs staffe I sweare I haue no minde of feasting forth to night: but I will goe.  View more context for this quotation
1631   B. Jonson Divell is Asse i. ii. 29 in Wks. II   They doe say, H'will meet a man (of himselfe) that has a mind to him. If hee would so, I haue a minde and a halfe for him.
1766   O. Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield II. i. 12   To assist at tattering a kip, as the phrase was, when we had a mind for a frolic.
1775   S. Johnson Let. 8 Apr. (1992) II. 197   When shall I come down to you? I believe I can get away pretty early in May, if you have any mind of me.
1790   By-stander 134   When he has a mind of a little fun.
1855   W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Philip II of Spain I. ii. iii. 442   Philip had no mind for a second collision with the papal court.
1871   Routledge's Every Boy's Ann. Jan. 45   We have no mind for a sousing.
1895   R. Kipling in Pall Mall Gaz. 30 May 2/2   You won't have no mind for slingers, not to-morrow—..bein' sick!
1914   S. Lewis Our Mr. Wrenn xi. 143   Mr. Wrenn was talking to an American who had a clipped mustache, brisk manners,..and a mind for duck-shooting, hardware-selling, and cigars.
1948   E. Waugh Loved One 78   You couldn't really get away from the war even there. The ladies didn't seem to have a mind for anything higher than pattern-bombing.

1553—1948(Hide quotations)

 
 e.
 

 (a) In relative and if-clauses with implied infinitive.

1703   Clarendon's Hist. Rebellion II. viii. 374   Without..restraining them from making Incursions where they had a mind.
1737   S. Berington Mem. G. di Lucca 261   When they have dropp'd all [the wild Boars] that are dangerous, and as much as they have a mind, they open their Toils.
1826   W. Scott Let. 6 Feb. (1935) IX. 412   I have no idea of these things preventing a man from doing what he has a mind.
1848   W. M. Thackeray Let. 1 Aug. (1945) II. 413   Those who had a mind were free to repair to a magnificent neighboring saloon.
1874   G. J. Whyte-Melville Uncle John III. xxi. 22   They could..burn us out if they had a mind.
1994   Harpers Mag. July 41/1   The operator at the controls sees her and shouts down to git on over and git some, if she's a mind.

1703—1994(Hide quotations)

 
 

 (b) With to representing an unexpressed infinitive (see to 21). The examples enclosed in square brackets are probably to be explained as instances of the idiom by which a preposition governing a relative expressed or understood is moved to the end of the sentence (cf. quots. 1674 at sense 11c, 1711 at sense 11c, 1711 at sense 11c). But the indefiniteness of the antecedent and the presence of a transitive verb in the sentence make it possible for the passages to be taken as anticipations of the modern colloquial practice, which may indeed have been partly developed from expressions of this kind.

[1671   H. M. tr. Erasmus Colloquies 519   Enquire what thou hast a mind to.
1734   Ld. Chesterfield Let. 2 Nov. (1932) (modernized text) II. 291   Amoretto was with difficulty prevailed upon to eat and drink as much as he had a mind to.
1744   E. Haywood Female Spectator (1748) No. 4. I. 189   As our sex has the privilege of saying whatever we have a mind to.]
1771   Trial Atticus before Justice Beau 14   Folks say he is a conjurer, and can tell any thing he's a mind to.
1852   H. B. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin I. ii. 28   I don't need to hire any of my hands out, unless I've a mind to.
1859   S. Smith My Thirty Years out of Senate (1860) 87   I s'pose a Governor has a right to flog anybody he's a mind to.
1871   Lippincott's Monthly Mag. 27 Mar. 282   You can call me when you are a-mind to.
1895   ‘Heatherbell’ in Sc. Antiquary 10 79   They..thought that they could deal as they had a mind to with his property.
1941   J. Agee & W. Evans Let us now praise Famous Men ii. 25   He said, Sure, of course, take all the snaps you've a mind to.
1986   U. Holden Tin Toys (1987) vi. 57   She was welcome to join his friends if she'd a mind to.

1771—1986(Hide quotations)

 

 12. to change one's mind : to alter one's purpose, opinion, way of thinking, plans, etc.; also one's mind changes .

a1500  (c1477)    T. Norton Ordinal of Alchemy (BL Add.) (1975) 732 (MED)   Often tymes his mynde to & fro In new opinions he shalle change.
?1515   W. Harrington Commendations of Matrimony sig. A iii. v   Yf so be that the sender of the letters do not chaunge theyr minde.
c1520   tr. Terence Andria ii. vi, in Terens in Eng. sig. Bv   As it is to an honest man besemyng But now he must be weddid his mind is chaungid.
1615   W. Lawson Country Housewifes Garden (1626) 44   I haue changed my mind concerning the disease called the worme.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1623) ii. ii. 96   If you shall send them word you will not come, Their mindes may change.  View more context for this quotation
1617   F. Moryson Itinerary i. 121   Cardinall Allan an Englishman, having used to persecute the English..had changed his mind, since the English had overthrowne the Spanish Navy.
1631   S. Rutherford Lett. (1863) I. xix. 79   Do ye believe that our Lord will..rue of the bargain and change His mind?
1719   J. Allen in J. Duncombe Lett. Several Eminent Persons Deceased (1773) I. 214   I have lived to change my mind, and am almost of the contrary opinion.
1764   Dialogue Late Decl. & Remonstr. Back-inhabitants Pennsylvania 2   Three Parts of the City seem to approve of it, if their Minds don't change with the next Wind that blows.
1842   Ld. Tennyson Dora in Poems (new ed.) II. 35   It cannot be: my uncle's mind will change!
1883   F. M. Crawford Dr. Claudius vi   Her first impulse was to change her mind and not go after all.
1959   Times 11 Nov. 13/6   But it would be unrealistic to think that by huffing and puffing at him..the General can be made to change his mind.
1982   Daily Tel. 5 Oct. 15/1   He would not change his mind about excluding ‘wheelchair wounded’ from the Falklands victory parade.
1996   Sunday Tel. 13 Oct. i. 24/6   They are convinced that one last heave in the months before the election could force the Government to change its mind.

a1500—1996(Hide quotations)

 
 *** In uses primarily expressing inclination.
 13.

 a. Inclination, tendency, or way of thinking and feeling; (also, with modifying adjective) a specified kind of character, disposition, spirit, or temper. †to bear a —— mind : to entertain or maintain (the specified) sentiments or state of mind (obsolete).frame of mind, state of mind: see frame n. 20, state n. 2.

a1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 259   Some [sc. beasts] beþ swiþe wraþþeful and angry & with stronge mynde, as þe hound, þe Camel, and þe asse.
?a1475   Ludus Coventriae (1922) 372 (MED)   For as ye [sc. Mary] were clene in erthe of alle synnys greyn, so schul ye reyne in hefne clennest in mend.
▸ ?a1513   W. Dunbar Tabill of Confessioun in Poems (1998) I. 271   O mynd dissimilit, lord, I me confes.
1560   J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. iijv   Luther..reproueth his cruell and bloudy mynde.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) v. iii. 12   Feare not: he beares an honourable minde, And will not vse a woman lawlesly.  View more context for this quotation
1631   Earl of Manchester Contemplatio Mortis 21   To be willing to dye, and content to liue, is the mind of a strong Christian.
1680   T. Otway Orphan ii. 22   Who can hear this and bear an equal mind!
1729   G. Adams tr. Sophocles Antigone iv. i, in tr. Sophocles Trag. II. 61   Lead me home, that he may..know how to keep a stiller Tongue, and ever be of a better Mind than now he is.
1777   E. Burke Let. to Sheriffs Bristol 10   But the war is not ended: The hostile mind continues in full vigour.
1859   Ld. Tennyson Guinevere in Idylls of King 242   For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.
1867   E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest I. App. 649   He was then brought to a better mind by a rebuke from a Christian.
1980   D. Millman Way of Peaceful Warrior Introd. 30   You may, in fact, experience the mind of a warrior on occasion; resolute, flexible, clear, and free of doubt.
1998   K. Desai Hullabaloo in Guava Orchard (1999) xix. 166   They were dirtying him with their dirty minds.

a1398—1998(Hide quotations)

 

 b. The way in which a person feels, or the attitude a person has, towards another; disposition or intention towards others. †to bear good mind to : to be well disposed towards (obsolete).

a1516   H. Medwall Godely Interlude Fulgens ii. sig. e.iii v   Go in hand with her anone..For to fele her mynde toward me.
1530   tr. Caesar Commentaryes x. f. xii   Whome he had knowen & sene so specyally aboue other, to bere hys good myne [perh. read mynde] and fydelyte toward hym.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 449/2   I beare hym good mynde, je suis affectionné enuers luy.
a1563   J. Bale King Johan (1969) ii. 1929   Ye knowe very well she beareth the churche good mynde.
1569   R. Grafton Chron. II. 707   The more number of the nobilitie, bare towarde king Henry..their good minds and fixed hartes.
1580   J. Stow Chrons. of Eng. Ep. Ded. ⁋iij b   Not doubting but your Lordship..will..vouchesafe to accepte this Monument of my affectionate minde.
c1613   in T. Stapleton Plumpton Corr. (1839) 48   Wee understand..your true mind & faithful liegiance towards us.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) i. ii. 33   I would I knew his minde .  View more context for this quotation
1693   in Dict. Older Sc. Tongue (1973) IV. 272/1   I desire yow to wryt with the bearer how ye are and your mind to me.
1765   R. Cumberland Summer's Tale i. vii. 24   I am fit to think his old Honour does not bear an honest Mind towards her.
1822   J. Galt Provost xlvi. 342   Therefore, Mr. Peevie, would it no be a very proper thing, in the choice of the new counsellors, to take men of a friendly mind towards you.
1893   G. Gissing Odd Women II. iii. 66   You said that by making Miss Barfoot see she was wrong you could alter her mind towards me.
1932   T. E. Lawrence tr. Homer Odyssey xv   He spoke again, in wish to find out the swineherd's real mind towards him and if he would extend him longer hospitality there in the farm, or compel him city-wards.

a1516—1932(Hide quotations)

 
 14.

 a. The direction or focus of a person's thoughts, desires, inclinations, or energies. In phrases, as one's mind is (also runs) on : one attends to, thinks of, is interested in, or is absorbed by. to set (also have, keep, turn) one's mind on : to desire to attain or accomplish, put or keep before one as an object of desire or as a goal; to concentrate on. to give (also put, set, turn) one's mind to : to concentrate one's attention on; to bend one's energies towards accomplishing or attaining (an objective).

c1450  (?a1400)    Wars Alexander (Ashm.) 269   Ȝe behald me sa hogely, quare-on is ȝour mynde?
1475   J. Paston in Paston Lett. & Papers (2004) I. 484   My mynde is now nott most vppon bokys.
1509   A. Barclay Brant's Shyp of Folys (Pynson) f. clxxiiv   For a ryche man settynge theron his mynde Shal into heuen right hardly passage fynde.
a1578   R. Lindsay Hist. & Cron. Scotl. (1899) I. 129   The kingis maiestie sett his haill care and mynd to invaide Ingland.
a1593   C. Marlowe Edward II (1594) sig. D3   Still his minde runs on his minion.
a1628   J. Carmichaell Coll. Prov. in Scots (1957) No. 793   His mynd is on his meate.
1677   A. Horneck Great Law Consideration (1704) iv. 105   The wolf..sent to school to learn to spell, could make nothing of all that was said to him but sheep. His mind still ran upon that.
1732   True & Faithful Narr. in J. Swift Misc. III. ii. 263   His mind was wholly turn'd upon Spiritual Matters.
1768   L. Sterne Sentimental Journey I. 94   The landlord deliver'd this in a manner which instantly set my mind to the business I was upon.
1827   B. Disraeli Vivian Grey III. v. xv. 301   I've set my mind upon your joining the party.
1850   C. Dickens David Copperfield xxxv. 357   Sordid and selfish as I knew it was..to let my mind run on my own distress so much.
1859   Ld. Tennyson Vivien in Idylls of King 126   And since he kept his mind on one sole aim.
1861   A. P. Stanley Lect. Eastern Church (1869) vi. 254   But each of the sacraments must often have been deferred to a time when the candidates could give their whole minds to the subject.
1898   J. M. Falkner Moonfleet iii. 37   I had my mind on diamonds and all kinds of mammon.
1926   R. Lardner Who Dealt? ix. 217   I'll stop talking now and try and keep my mind on the game.
1955   D. Eden Darling Clementine xvii. 173   At first her mind had not been on Fergus.
1958   K. Amis I like it Here i. 18   There's plenty of time to play with and I'm sure we can get it all sorted out if we put our minds to it.
1971   P. G. Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves x. 104   When an aunt has set her mind on a thing, it's no use trying to put in a nolle prosequi.
1991   Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Apr. 220/1   Was his mind on the time he was..almost given up for dead, at approximately the age of many of the flyboys who would later be running sorties from Dhahran?

c1450—1991(Hide quotations)

 

 b. to one's mind : according to one's wish, to one's taste or liking. Similarly †according to (also after) one's mind (obsolete). Now somewhat archaic.

a1500   Sidrac & Bokkus (Lansd.) 3719 (MED)   God made euery beest after his minde.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 580/1   I have a person or a beest accordyng to my mynde, I have them in suche awe as I desyre.
1535   Bible (Coverdale) Ecclus. vii. 26   Yf thou haue a wife after thine owne mynde, forsake her not.
1535   Bible (Coverdale) 1 Macc. iv. 6   Which had nether harnesse ner sweardes to their myndes.
1647   J. Trapp Comm. Evangelists & Acts (Matt. vi. 5)   [Saul] grunts against himself because he [sc. God] handles him nat after his own mind.
1685   in J. G. Dunlop Dunlop Papers (1953) III. 18   Agnes Fergison..heath goten a master to her own myend.
1693   J. Evelyn tr. J. de La Quintinie Compl. Gard'ner ii. v. iv. 86   Those Gropers, who, to gather one according to their Mind, will spoil a hundred by the violent impression of their Unskillful Thumb.
1719   D. Defoe Farther Adventures Robinson Crusoe 249   It was however, some Time before we could get a Ship to our Minds.
?1790   J. Imison Curious & Misc. Articles (new ed.) 92 in School of Arts (ed. 2)    You may brighten it to your mind by the above mixture.
1847   A. Helps Friends in Council (1873) I. viii. 130   Commands are expected to be fulfilled..exactly to the mind of the person ordering.
1898   Dict. National Biogr. LVI. 21/2   Nothing was more to the mind of Nicholas.
1918   ‘B. MacNamara’ Valley of Squinting Windows 52   Ulick Shannon was finding the valley very little to his mind.
1966   R. Pitter Still by Choice 19   Seeing what that heat sees is not to my mind.

a1500—1966(Hide quotations)

 

 c. to take (also get, draw, etc.) one's mind off (from) : to divert one's attention or turn one's thoughts from (something, esp. something worrying or painful).

1672   French Rogue xxi. 133   But it was no time now to complain in such terms, and the present danger I was in, drew off my mind from such thoughts, to consult for my safety.
1788   M. Wollstonecraft Mary v. 34   There were many elegant amusements, that she had acquired a relish for, which might have taken her mind off from its most destructive bent.
1822   R. H. Dana Idle Man I. 79   The grief of his mother, and her imploring helplessness, took Thornton's mind off from its regrets and painful thoughts, while it softened his heart.
1889   ‘M. Twain’ Connecticut Yankee xii. 143   Well, it took my mind off from everything else; took it clear off.
1915   V. Woolf Voy. Out iv. 67   She was determined that Sir Walter should take her husband's mind off the guns of Britain, and divert him in an exquisite, quaint, sprightly, and slightly ridiculous world.
1941   B. Schulberg What makes Sammy Run? iv. 70   I had a notion that a little of Billie and Sammy Glick might not be such a bad idea, if only to get my mind off my own tsurus.
1991   Atlantic June 87/1   The widow of the electrocuted man didn't even have children to take her mind off her loneliness.

1672—1991(Hide quotations)

 

 15. State of thought and feeling; mood. Usually with respect to a specific characteristic, as peace or anxiety, sorrow or joy. Frequently in to set one's mind at ease .peace of mind: see peace n. 3b.

c1460   Abraham & Isaac in N. Davis Non-Cycle Plays & Fragm. (1970) 38 (MED)   A, dere hert, wo is me therefore; My mynde is worse than evyr it was.
▸ ?a1513   W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 169   Quho had all riches vnto Ynd, And wer not satefeit in mynd.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 674/2   He was never quyette in his mynde tyll I did put hym in a suertye.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Tempest (1623) iv. i. 163   A turne or two, Ile walke To still my beating minde .  View more context for this quotation
a1631   J. Donne Iuuenilia (1633) sig. D3   For our mind is heauy in our bodies afflictions.
1667   J. Milton Paradise Lost ix. 1120   Not at rest or ease of Mind, They sate them down to weep.  View more context for this quotation
1728   A. Ramsay Anacreontic on Love 32   He leugh and with unsonsy jest, Cry'd, ‘Nibour, I'm right blyth in mind.’
1750   Bible (Challoner) Dan. ii. 3   I saw a dream: and being troubled in mind I know not what I saw.
a1763   W. Shenstone Pastoral Ballad in Coll. Poems iv. 353   O how, with one trivial glance, Might she ruin the peace of my mind!
1839   C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby xxvi. 256   Meanwhile, Ralph walked to and fro in his little back-office, troubled in mind by what had just occurred.
1863   E. C. Gaskell Sylvia's Lovers III. xiv. 242   A could wish as a'd learned write-of-hand,..for a've that for to tell Christopher as might set his mind at ease.
1933   H. Allen Anthony Adverse I. i. i. 15   His leg had stopped hurting and left him pleasantly vacant of mind; in an easy, almost garrulous mood.
1958   J. Wain Contenders vi. 129   Robert could become..just another version of Ned, only more repulsive because of his greater pretensions. That ought to set Ned's mind at ease.
1990   D. Folster Chocolate Ganongs St. Stephen vii. 71   That ensured that any parents in the back concessions who might worry about their daughters succumbing to the blandishments of a seaport town could set their minds at ease.

c1460—1990(Hide quotations)

 
 **** In uses primarily expressing opinion or judgement.

 16. That which a person thinks about something; a person's view, judgement, or opinion. Now chiefly in phrases at sense 17.

c1400  (c1378)    W. Langland Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. xvi. 58   For alle are þei aliche longe..And to my mynde, as me þinketh, on o More þei growed.
1421   in J. B. Paul Registrum Magni Sigilli Scotorum (1882) II. 30/1   This indentur..beris wytnes that thai ar acordyt in this mynd eftir foluand.
c1450  (a1375)    Octavian (Calig.) (1979) 888   The good wyf seyd: ‘Be seynt Denys, Swyche ys my mende’.
1512   Act 4 Hen. VIII c. 19 Preamble   The seid Frensche Kyng..abydyng in his seid indurat & pervart opynyons & erronyous mynde.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 680/1   I reason with one in a mater to fele his mynde in it.
1560   J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. iv   Such as could not be there present, he desyred to send their myndes in wrytinge.
1595   W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 3 iii. ii. 17   Widow come some other time to know our mind.
1689   in Colonial Rec. Pennsylvania (1852) I. 250   The Governor Desired Every Member of ye board would deliver his minde, and give him advice therein.
1706   A. Pope Let. 10 Apr. in Corr. (1956) I. 16   Pray let me know your mind in this, for I am utterly at a loss.
1781   J. Moore View Soc. Italy (1790) II. lxv. 294   Would to heaven these doubters would keep their minds to themselves.
1807   Let. 2 Dec. in J. Constable Corr. (1962) 22   The most acceptable acknowledgement you can make her, is—at your perfect leisure and mind—to visit her, & give her a good sketch of her lovely darling boy.
1824   W. McVitie Tales II. 108   Keep your mind tae yoursel.
a1896   J. Slater Seaside Idylls (1898) 52   Weel, weel, than, I'm agreeable, but that's my mind.

c1400—a1896(Hide quotations)

 
 17. Phrases.

 a. to my mind (also in my mind): in my judgement or opinion, as I think; also (occasionally) with the other possessive personal pronouns (cf. sense 14b).

c1400 [see sense 16].
a1500  (c1477)    T. Norton Ordinal of Alchemy (BL Add.) (1975) 1357 (MED)   Take no man therto But he be wagide..And that your wagis be to theire mynde Bettir then thei elswere can fynde.
1518   in B. Cusack Everyday Eng. 1500–1700 (1998) 224   And yt hayd bene beste for me In my mynd.
1600   W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice iv. i. 404   Anthonio, gratifie this gentleman, for in my mind you are much bound to him.
1604   W. Shakespeare Hamlet i. iv. 16   But to my minde..it is a custome More honourd in the breach, then the obseruance.
1663   A. Cowley Of Obscurity in Ess. in Verse & Prose   It is, in my Mind, a very delightful Pastime.
1714   S. Centlivre Wonder ii. 15   Now in my Mind—I take Snuff with a very Jantee Air.
1754   S. Johnson Let. 16 July (1992) I. 81   My book..draws towards its end, but which I cannot finish to my mind without visiting the libraries of Oxford.
1801   ‘Gabrielli’ Mysterious Husband III. 255   They then got into their carriage, a mighty flashy one, to my mind.
1813   J. C. Hobhouse Journey (ed. 2) 501   The modern cestus,..is not, in my mind, an agreeable ornament.
a1865   E. C. Gaskell Wives & Daughters (1866) I. xvi. 182   The other is but a loutish young fellow, to my mind.
1877   H. James American viii. 148   Your best chance for success will be precisely in being, to her mind, unusual, unexpected, original.
1915   C. P. Gilman Herland in Forerunner July 185/2   Would you mind helping us by saying what, to your minds, are the worst qualities of this unique civilization of yours?
1941   J. C. Ransom New Crit. ii. 208   In my mind Dante's beliefs are very bold speculations at which the accusing finger has pointed steadily for a long time now.
1974   ‘M. Innes’ Appleby's Other Story x. 79   An eye should be kept on him, to my mind.
1992   New Republic 11 May 13/1   Refusing to impose punitive tariffs on a foreign producer is, to his mind, the equivalent of bankrolling foreigners.

c1400—1992(Hide quotations)

 

 b. to be of (also in) one (or a) mind and variants: to agree in judgement, purpose, or opinion; to be unanimous. with one mind: unanimously, with one accord.

?1496   in J. Gairdner Lett. Reigns of Richard III & Henry VII (1863) II. 67   If we hadde alle here ben of oone mynde in folowyng directly the Kinges mynde.
1570   in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) 87   With ane mynde thay did consent togidder Dauid to slay.
a1600  (▸1535)    W. Stewart tr. H. Boece Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) 38902   All in ane mynd and will.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Cymbeline (1623) v. v. 297   I would we were all of one minde, and one minde good.  View more context for this quotation
a1616   W. Shakespeare All's Well that ends Well (1623) i. iii. 236   He and his Phisitions Are of a minde.  View more context for this quotation
1648   T. Gage Eng.-Amer. 191   The three Spaniards were halfe of the same mind.
1686   J. Gowther Amicable Accommodation 2   Being so near of a mind, we have yet been so long clashing Quills, as Adversaries.
a1712   G. Granville Ess. Unnat. Flights Poetry in Poems 176   And, by the Tyrant's Murder, we may find That Cato and the Gods were of a Mind.
1740   C. Cibber Apol. Life C. Cibber ix. 179   Their Lovers are generally constant, simple Sighers, both of a Mind.
1805   W. Wordsworth Waggoner i. 133   Ye pulled together with one mind.
1862   J. H. Burton Book-hunter (1863) 136   A panel means twelve perplexed agriculturists, who..are starved till they are of one mind.
1871   B. Jowett tr. Plato Dialogues III. 577   When men have anything to do in common, that they should be of one mind is a pleasant thing.
1877   C. H. Spurgeon Serm. XXIII. 70   Here they were, all of a mind, and all ready to start.
1933   D. Richardson in J. Gawsworth Ten Contemporaries 2nd Ser. ix. 196   Strangers impinging, the sense of a vast company of people by no means all of one mind.
1981   Dict. National Biogr. 1961–70 52/1   They were of one mind on the necessity of involving the United States in the defence of Western Europe.
1992   A. W. Eckert Sorrow in our Heart xi. 663   Then must you..pick up your hatchets to rise with one mind and one heart against those whites who have so defiled her.

?1496—1992(Hide quotations)

 

 c. to speak one's mind : to give one's judgement or opinion; esp. to express one's sentiments candidly or plainly, to speak freely. Also to open one's mind (now archaic). Similarly to tell (a person) one's mind , to let (a person) know one's mind : to let (a person) know one's judgement or opinion.a piece (also a bit) of one's mind: see piece n. Phrases 6, bit n.2 6a.

c1500   in R. H. Robbins Secular Lyrics 14th & 15th Cent. (1952) 5 (MED)   Is tell yw my mynd, anes tayliur, dame; I deme we lak plesur.
1508   J. Fisher Treat. Penyt. Psalmes sig. nn.vv   A mannes entent or mynde spoken by his owne mouth moueth more the herer than it were shewed & spoken by ony other.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 478/2   And I may catche hym ones, I shall tell hym more of my mynde.
1533   in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxf. (1880) 115   That we should freindly open our minds each to other.
1596   in B. Cusack Everyday Eng. 1500–1700 (1998) 131   Lett me knowe yor minde eyther to denie me or ells to yelde to mee.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Taming of Shrew (1623) iv. iii. 75   Your betters haue indur'd me say my minde.  View more context for this quotation
a1616   W. Shakespeare As you like It (1623) ii. vii. 59   Giue me leaue To speake my minde .  View more context for this quotation
1676   A. Marvell Mr. Smirke sig. G2v   'Tis happy that some or other of this Few chances ever and anon to speak their minds out, to shew us plainly what they would be at.
1682   J. Bunyan Holy War 13   I have opened my mind unto you.  View more context for this quotation
1702   R. Steele Funeral ii. 19   When I know her further than Skin-deep, I'll tell you more of my mind.
1728   J. Morgan Compl. Hist. Algiers I. ii. 221   When got to Sea, he opened his Mind to the Chiefs of his Equipage.
1765   J. Wesley Wks. (1872) XIII. 239   My dogmaticalness is..a custom of coming to the point at once, and telling my mind flat and plain.
1806   J. Beresford Miseries Human Life I. vii. 175   I let them know my mind in a manner that pretty effectually secures me from this ‘misery’, for the rest of that sitting.
1846   R. Browning Soul's Trag. in Bells & Pomegranates No. VIII i   I've spoke my mind too fully out.
1861   ‘G. Eliot’ Silas Marner xvi. 284   As it grew more and more easy to him to open his mind to Dolly Winthrop, he gradually communicated to her all he could describe of his early life.
1888   A. Jessopp Coming of Friars i. 42   Henry..spoke out his mind and showed that he was not too well-pleased.
1904   H. O. Sturgis Belchamber xix. 269   Your sarcasms will never prevent my speaking my mind.
1954   A. Thirkell What did it Mean? 74   As hostess and President she felt she ought not to have spoken her mind so freely.
1988   M. Seymour Ring of Conspirators iv. 110   The James children had always been encouraged to speak their minds freely.
1995   K. Ishiguro Unconsoled xxii. 327   If they annoy you so much, why don't you just speak your mind?

c1500—1995(Hide quotations)

 
 

d. against the mind of (a person) : in opposition to a person's judgement, wish, or opinion; without a person's approbation or consent. Also without the mind of. Obsolete.

1512   Act 4 Hen. VIII c. 20 Preamble   The said John..fortuned to be slayn..ayenst the will and mynde of your seid Beseecher.
1553   T. Becon Relikes of Rome (1563) 213   The Councell which is celebrated without the mynde and consent of the Romyshe Byshop.
1668   N. Culpeper & A. Cole tr. T. Bartholin Anat. (new ed.) iii. x. 151   Cassenius against the mind of all Anatomists draws its original from the Pinnæ of the Nose.
1698   T. Hearne Ductor Historicus I. iii. ix. 324   Themistocles..brought the Athenians back to their City, which they fortified, and added the Pyreum to it much against the Spartan's Mind.
?1747   E. Erskine in Princeton Rev. 7 (1835) 230   I see thirteen men of..the Associate Synod..carrying a matter by a thin meeting by a scrimp majority of four votes, not only against the mind of their brethren, but against the whole flock of Christ that have travelled the road to glory before us.
1804   J. Baillie Rayner iv. i, in Misc. Plays 91   I fear to die... For oh! it goes against the mind of man To be turned out from its warm wonted home, Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill.
1874   A. C. Swinburne Bothwell ii. iv. 130   This fire in you Who chose him, being so young, of your own will, Against the mind of many, for your lord, Shall rather burn yourself than purge his mood.

1512—1874(Hide quotations)

 

 e. to be of (rarely †in) mind and variants (with clause or modifying adjective): to hold the specified opinion. to be of (another's) mind : to be of the same way of thinking, or agree in opinion with (another person).

1567   in P. F. Tytler Hist. Scotl. (1864) III. 248   The nobility are of mind to suit assistance of the queen.
1581   G. Pettie tr. S. Guazzo Ciuile Conuersat. (1586) ii. 66 b   I am of this minde, that the making of rime shoulde not make a Poet use naughtie wordes.
1585   J. Stell in T. Washington tr. N. de Nicolay Nauigations Turkie Ep. Ded.   Hee was alwaies of opinion and minde, that..learning, is not to be sought for in bookes.
1597   W. Shakespeare Richard II v. ii. 107   Sweete Yorke, sweete husband, be not of that mind.  View more context for this quotation
a1616   W. Shakespeare As you like It (1623) v. iv. 70   He sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, hee was in the minde it was.  View more context for this quotation
1634   J. Canne Necessitie of Separation v. 210   Augustine was of mind, that councils, Bishops, &c. ought not to be objected for triall of controversies, but the holy scriptures onely.
1647   J. Howell New Vol. of Lett. 60   I am of the I[t]alians mind that said Nulla nuova, buona nuova, no newes good newes.
1690   J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding ii. xvii. 108   If these men are of the Mind, That they have clearer Ideas of infinite Duration, than of infinite Space.
1717   Lady M. W. Montagu Let. 1 Apr. (1965) I. 334   I don't doubt you'l be of my Mind.
1748   H. Purefoy Let. 28 Jan. in G. Eland Purefoy Lett. (1931) I. iv. 80   She is much in the mind she could convince them yours is the better.
1840   R. W. Emerson Thoughts on Mod. Lit. in Uncoll. Prose 1147   Tempestuous storms, which though our meteorologists generally refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodine's mind, they are more often caused by those aerial devils in their several quarters.
1871   Routledge's Every Boy's Ann. Apr. 242   I'm of Bradshawe's mind in the matter.
1914   E. R. Burroughs Tarzan of Apes vi. 74   But Kala was of a different mind.
1971   Shankar's Weekly (Delhi) 4 Apr. 5/4   Local communists had been watching with uneasiness..and were even of the mind that he should be denounced as a CIA spy.
1992   A. Thorpe Ulverton iii. 52   It is a loose, spongy ground, and Farmer Barr was of the mind that, were I to plough it up and sow it to one earth, as I had considered, I would have much trouble with the redweed, or poppy.

1567—1992(Hide quotations)

 
 

 f. to have a mind of one's own and variants: to be independent in thought and speech; to be wilful and self-assertive; (also, of inanimate objects) to be wayward and uncontrollable, as if on purpose.

1744   S. Fielding Adventures David Simple I. ii. vii. 215   I believe this is owing to their Ignorance; for as they have no Minds of their own, they have no Idea of others Sensations.
1867   A. Trollope Chron. Barset I. vii. 55   A weak, wishy-washy man, who had hardly any mind of his own to speak of.
1881   H. James Portrait of Lady III. iii. 40   The real offence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to be his.
1957   J. Braine Room at Top (1960) 73   She'd think me an intelligent type with a mind of my own.
1976   A. White Long Silence ii. 19   You're not a Parlor dog, trained to bark when I ring a bell. You have a mind of your own.
1993   Guardian 18 Dec. 4/8   She had a mind of her own—she wasn't meek or mild. Not lippy, but a strong personality.
1995   B. Bryson Notes from Small Island (1996) xiii. 162   My attention was preoccupied with trying to turn off the back windscreen wiper, which seemed to have a mind of its own.

1744—1995(Hide quotations)

 

 g. meeting of (the) minds :  (a) Law mutual agreement; = consensus ad idem n.;  (b) agreement, accord, or rapport between two or more people; an instance of this;  (c) concrete a meeting, discussion, forum, etc.

1883   J. N. Pomeroy Treat. on Equity Jurispr. iii. 413   There is a mutual mistake—that is, where there has been a meeting of minds—an agreement actually entered into—but the contract, deed, settlement, or other settlement, or other instrument, in its written form, does not express what was really intended.
1939   Corpus Juris Secundum 17 359/2   A common intention, a meeting of the minds, on all terms thereof, is essential to an agreement.
1946   E. Hodgins Mr. Blandings (1947) ii. 21 (heading)    Meeting of the minds.
1969   D. Acheson Present at Creation (1970) xvii. 156   At the end of the two days no meeting of minds had occurred.
1987   L. Brown Law for Haulier 44   In short, there has to be no room for misunderstanding; there must be what lawyers call consensus ad idem or a meeting of minds.
1989   Independent 22 Dec. 19/4   Referring to the Prime Minister's meeting of minds with Mr Shevardnadze, the Foreign Secretary said ‘our interest is to keep the two systems’.
1991   Utne Reader July 138/1 (advt.)    The WELL is a computer network. Right now you are just a few keystrokes away from this lively and open meeting of minds.
1991   Hot Press Nov. 7   With the meeting of minds and bodies under the auspices of the 1st Irish Lesbian and Gay Film Festival a whole plethora of issues were raised.

1883—1991(Hide quotations)

 
III. Senses relating to amount.

 18. A number or amount (of something). Esp. in much (also mickle, great, etc.) mind . Obsolete.

a1325  (c1250)    Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 3676   Fro lond ortigie cam a wind, And brogte turles michel mind.
c1390  (c1350)    Proprium Sanctorum in Archiv f. das Studium der Neueren Sprachen (1888) 81 113 (MED)   Heuene-kyngdom is lyk ȝut To a Net..þat of alle ffissches kuynde Gedereþ in to him muche muynde.
?a1400  (a1338)    R. Mannyng Chron. (Petyt) i. f. 13 (MED)   In a fo ȝers all þe kynde of folk wex þei mykell mynde.
?a1400  (a1338)    R. Mannyng Chron. (Petyt) (1996) i. 15680   Þorgh roten ayer & wikked wyndes, in alle stedes men died grete myndes.
c1450  (?a1400)    Wars Alexander (Ashm.) 1245   Slik a mynd vn-to me ware meruaill to reken. Thretti thousand in thede of thra men of armes.
a1500  (?a1400)    Tale King Edward & Shepherd (Cambr.) (1930) 255 (MED)   The scheperde hows ful mery stode Vndir a forest fayre and gode, Of hert and hynde gret mynde.

a1325—a1500(Hide quotations)

 
 IV. Mental or psychic faculty.
 19.
 a.

 (a) The seat of awareness, thought, volition, feeling, and memory; cognitive and emotional phenomena and powers considered as constituting a presiding influence; the mental faculty of a human being (esp. as regarded as being separate from the physical); (occasionally) this whole system as constituting a person's character or individuality.

c1350  (a1333)    William of Shoreham Poems (1902) 1 (MED)   Sonderliche his man astoned In his owene mende, Wanne he note neuer wannes he comþe Ne wider he schel wende.
a1375  (c1350)    William of Palerne (1867) 4123 (MED)   He [sc. the werwolf] has mannes munde more þan we boþe.
c1390   G. Chaucer Parson's Tale 914   Thoghtes that ben enclosed in mannes mynde, whan he gooth to slepe.
c1430  (c1386)    G. Chaucer Legend Good Women 946   Moche sorwe hadde he in his mynde.
a1450  (c1412)    T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Harl. 4866) (1897) 997   Mynde, ee, and hand; non may fro othir flitte.
a1500  (a1450)    Generides (Trin. Cambr.) 480   She..told hym all that lay sore in hir mynd.
1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 430/2   I am wery for occupyeng of the mynde to moche.
1589   G. Puttenham Arte Eng. Poesie iii. v. 124   This continuall course and manner of writing or speech sheweth the matter and disposition of the writers minde,..therefore there be that haue called stile, the image of man, (mentis character) for man is but his minde.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor (1623) iv. vi. 29   While other sports are tasking of their mindes .  View more context for this quotation
1643   R. Baillie Let. 7 Dec. (1841) II. 109   While they stand, the scribe and others number them in their minde.
1690   J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding i. ii. 5   No Proposition can be said to be in the Mind..which it was never yet conscious of.
1692   J. Locke Some Thoughts conc. Educ. §31   Due care being had to keep the Body in Strength and Vigour, so that it may be able to obey and execute the Orders of the Mind.
1712   J. Addison Spectator No. 499. ¶3   This filled my Mind with such a huddle of Ideas, that..I fell into the following Dream.
1768   L. Sterne Sentimental Journey I. 56   The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him cross'd my mind.
1827   R. Southey Hist. Peninsular War II. 352   No such thought had ever entered Reding's mind.
1834   T. Medwin Angler in Wales I. 258   Such an idea never crossed one of our minds.
1851   C. Wordsworth Mem. Wordsw. I. 81   His mind was filled with gloomy forebodings.
1872   J. Morley Voltaire i. 6   Hardly a sentence is there which did not come forth alive from Voltaire's own mind.
1887   E. E. Money Little Dutch Maiden (1888) 56   Now, will you turn this over in your mind?
1913   R. Brooke in Blue Rev. July 150   Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
1938   R. G. Collingwood Princ. Art vii. 126   This must be either his body,..or else it is something mental but unconscious, in which case the productive force is the artist's unconscious mind.
1951   S. Spender World within World ii. 58   In recollecting them I did not want to hold them word by word in my mind, in exactly the same form as when I read them.
1987   A. Aronson Shakespeare & Rembrandt xi. 115   Rembrandt's interest in and understanding of men's and women's minds in moments of uncontrolled passion was Shakespearean.
1997   ‘Q’ Deadmeat 8   I knew exactly how I was going to run it when the time came. I'd gone over it a million times in my mind.

c1350—1997(Hide quotations)

 
 

 (b) Esp. in contexts where a definition, summary, or analysis of this faculty is provided.

a1400   tr. Lanfranc Sci. Cirurgie (Ashm.) (1894) 116 (MED)   Þe substaunce of þe ventriclis of þe brayn, of þe which mynde is maad.
a1425  (?a1400)    Cloud of Unknowing (Harl. 674) (1944) 115 (MED)   Reson & wille..ymaginacion & sensualite..alle þees foure miȝtes & þeire werkes mynde conteneþ & comprehendeþ in it-self.
1586   T. Bright Treat. Melancholie xiii. 70   So the mind..varieth not by nature, but by use only, or diuersity of those thinges whereto it applieth it selfe: as the same facultie applied to differring thinges, discerneth: to thinges past, remembreth: to thinges future, foreseeth: of present thinges, determineth: and that which the eye doth by turning of the head..that doth the mind freely at once.
1704   J. Norris Ess. Ideal World II. iii. 133   By Mind I think we are properly to mean that power which both perceives and wills.
1785   T. Reid Ess. Intellect. Powers i. ii. 42   We do not give the name of mind to thought, reason, or desire; but to that being which thinks, which reasons, which desires.
1815   J. G. Spurzheim Physiognom. Syst. viii. 293   The expression Mind designates the class of faculties. I divide it into two orders: into feelings (gemueth, in German) and intellect.
1843   J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. iii. §8   Mind is the mysterious something which feels and thinks.
1846   G. Moore Power of Soul (ed. 3) 73   Unfortunately the word mind has been almost universally employed to signify both that which thinks, and the phenomena of thinking.
1896   E. B. Titchener Outl. Psychol. xv. 339   Mind, we said, is the sum total of mental processes during a lifetime.
1950   Times 14 Apr. 5/4   The one fundamental difference which can be established between minds and brains is that the former are in no circumstances edible.
1984   A. Smith Mind p. xvii   The soul is an abstraction and the brain is an organ. To speak of the mind is to blend the two.
1987   Oxf. Compan. Mind 489/2   Mind is now considered to be a product of active processing of the flow of information working through elementary drives, or complex motives, set to single out important information about reality, relating bits of information and synthesizing them, and constructing plans and programmes of behaviour.
1990   Sciences July 46/1   In this view the mind is simply what the brain does; it emerges as an epiphenomenon.

a1400—1990(Hide quotations)

 
 b.

 (a) one's mind's eye (in early use also the eye of the mind )  [compare post-classical Latin oculus mentis (from 8th cent. in British sources)] : one's visual memory or imagination; recollection, contemplation. Frequently in one's mind's eye . Cf. also eye n.1 3.

c1390   G. Chaucer Man of Law's Tale 552   It were with thilke eyen of his mynde, With whiche men seen, after that they been blynde.
▸ 1435   R. Misyn tr. R. Rolle Fire of Love 81 (MED)   Entre is opynd in behaldynge of heuenly misterys to þe ee of his mynde.
a1450  (c1412)    T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Harl. 4866) (1897) 2895 (MED)   Haue often [him] by-fore your myndes ye.
1577   H. Languet Let. in Corr. Sidney & Languet (1845) 126   What will not these golden mountains effect..which I dare say stand before your mind's eye day and night?
1603   W. Shakespeare Hamlet i. ii. 184   I see my father..in my mindes eye.
1749   D. Garrick Let. 3 Aug. (1963) I. 107   We were going the other Night in Imagination to Londesburgh, &..My Lady was very near Desiring to make it real, but..we were oblig'd to See It, only in the Mind's Eye.
1797   F. Burney Jrnl. 30 Oct. (1973) IV. 2   Not an Hour passes in which he is not present to my mind's Eye.
1818   Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 33 414   I have..the little thatched cottages of Waltham Chase..in my mind's eye.
1883   S. C. Hall Retrospect Long Life II. 320   One such scene is in my mind's eye at this moment.
1932   G. Greene Stamboul Train i. i. 6   Seeing in his mind's eye the tired grey man.
1955   L. P. Hartley Perfect Woman xxvi. 235   Their name did not evoke an image to him; neither to his mind's eye nor Isabel's did they appear.
2005   D. Cruickshank Around World in 80 Treasures 225   So, like much else in St Petersburg, the vision for the prospect is Peter's—he could see its noble vista in his mind's eye when all was still marsh.

c1390—2005(Hide quotations)

 
 

 (b) one's mind's ear : one's auditory imagination; the hearing of sounds (esp. music) which exist only in imagination or in the memory.

1733   ‘P. Drake’ Grotto 5   The thinking Sculpture helps to raise Deep thoughts, the Genii of the place: To the minds ear, and inward sight, There silence speaks.
1775   F. Burney Jrnl. 6 Dec. (1889) II. 117   My mind's ear..was once more pleased.
1829   C. R. Maturin Melmoth III. xx. 352   She wished in this (to her) terrible emergency, to ask counsel of him whose image was ever present to her, and whose voice she heard with the mind's ear distinctly even in absence.
1884   Jrnl. Mental Sci. 19 510   We may, I think, be sure that some such region exists, that there is a mind's ear as well as the mind's eye.
1946   A. Hutchings in A. L. Bacharach Brit. Music xvi. 207   I do not think that, even now, Rubbra finds it easy to bring off the orchestration conceived in his mind's ear while writing his ‘short score’.
1977   Private Eye 13 May 11/2   In my mind's ear I related the word opera to operating theatre and then everything began to take shape.
1998   G. Delanty Hellbox 42   Even now In my mind's ear I hear your gusto, reviving Every cliché in the book.

1733—1998(Hide quotations)

 

 c. Frequently in theistic (esp. Christian) contexts: transcendent intelligence, rationality, or being, esp. that seen as initiating or controlling the universe.Also the mind of God , frequently used to express that which is regarded as intangible or unknowable in the universe.

a1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 104   And so þe firste world is euer lastinge & duringe in þouȝt & mynde of god.
1582   S. Batman Vppon Bartholome, De Proprietatibus Rerum 367   There are so many seminall reasons of things in the world, as there be Idees or conceites in the divine minde.
1612   F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 84   I had rather beleeue all the fables in the Legend, and the Alcaron, then that this vniuersall frame is without a minde.
?1615   G. Chapman tr. Homer Odysses (new ed.) iv. 663   Men's knowledges have proper limits set, And should not prease into the mind of God.
1690   J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding iv. x. 318   That eternal infinite Mind, who made and governs all Things.
1733   A. Pope Ess. Man i. 260   Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The great directing Mind of All ordains.
1781   W. Cowper Expostulation 198   They only..Received the transcript of the eternal mind.
1807   W. Wordsworth Ode in Poems II. 153   Haunted for ever by the eternal mind .  View more context for this quotation
1841   R. W. Emerson Ess. 1st Ser. (Boston ed.) ix. 245   Behold, it [sc. the soul] saith, I am born into the great, the universal mind.
1897   H. N. Howard Footsteps Proserpine 41   As from the nebulous elemental sea, Wand-smitten by the Eternal Mind, Earth rose.
1971   T. Alexander 2150 AD (1976) I. Data Excerpts 323   This Macro viewpoint, in which the human soul and subconscious mind perceive its oneness with all minds (super-conscious, universal mind, macrocosm, of God).
1988   S. W. Hawking Brief Hist. of Time xi. 175   If we find the answer to that [sc. why it is that we and the universe exist], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.

a1398—1988(Hide quotations)

 

 d. In plural with modifying adjective: a group or category of people regarded as embodying the (specified) qualities of mind.

c1580   Sir P. Sidney tr. Psalmes David xxxiv. ix   To humble broken minds, This Lord is ever, ever neare.
1609   W. Shakespeare Sonnets cxvii. sig. H   That I haue frequent binne with vnknown mindes .  View more context for this quotation
1642   R. Lovelace To Althea from Prison iv   Mindes innocent and quiet take That for an Hermitage.
1776   W. J. Mickle in tr. L. de Camoens Lusiad Introd. p. xxxv   Some of the Portuguese courtiers, the same ungenerous minds perhaps who advised the rejection of Columbus because he was a foreigner.
1889   Ld. Tennyson To Mary Boyle ix   Lowly minds were madden'd to the height By tonguester tricks.
1919   J. Conrad Arrow of Gold v. i   It was like the mania of those disordered minds who spend their days hunting for a treasure.
1976   Daily Mirror 16 July 11/3   It is puny minds like this that help the ‘Free Wales’ brigade in their campaign.
1999   Independent 3 May ii. 5/2   The idea that some small little minds disapprove of our admittedly somewhat rackety existences is not something that we..find interesting or relevant.

c1580—1999(Hide quotations)

 

 e. The way of thinking, habit of thought, or consensus, of a specified group of people. Cf. sense n. 22b.

a1586   Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) ii. f. 83   They (who thought they might do it, not onely willingly, because they loued him, and truely, because such indeed was the mind of the people, but safely because she who ruled the King was agreed thereto) accomplished her counsell.
1758   M. Akenside Ode to Bishop of Winchester in R. Dodsley Coll. Poems Several Hands VI. 27   What private force..Could a whole nation disengage From the dread bonds of many an age, And to new habits mould the public mind.
1786   S. Trimmer Œcon. Charity (1801) I. 151   The endeavours of infidels and seditionists to corrupt the public mind.
1812   H. Davy Elements Chem. Philos. 13   In this age it was peculiarly easy to deceive, but difficult to enlighten, the public mind.
1837   H. Martineau Society in Amer. III. 206   If the national mind of America be judged of by its legislation, it is of a very high order.
1857   H. T. Buckle Hist. Civilisation Eng. (1873) viii. 456   An impression had been made upon the popular mind which it was hardly possible to efface.
1883   Daily Tel. 10 Nov. 5/1   This cleavage of the religious mind of Europe into two extreme camps.
1920   W. McDougall Group Mind ii. 42   A proposition which voices the mind of the crowd..and so comes with the power of a mass-suggestion.
1938   R. G. Collingwood Princ. of Art ii. 17   The philosophy of craft, in fact, was one of the greatest and most solid achievements of the Greek mind.
1942   G. Bennett in Observer 8 Mar. 7/3   The 1918 mind lost us Singapore.
1971   Scotsman 20 May 1/7   Mr Herron said he was not ruling the report out of order. ‘I want to take the mind of the Assembly on this.’
1987   C. Thubron Behind Wall i. 18   Western systems don't exactly work here. They don't fit our mind.

a1586—1987(Hide quotations)

 

 f. on one's mind : occupying one's thoughts, esp. so as to trouble them. Also †to hang (also lie, etc.) on one's mind .

a1640   J. Fletcher & P. Massinger Double Marriage iii, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Eeeee/2   But such a melancholy hangs on his mind, And in his eyes inhabit such sad shadowes.
1664   T. Killigrew 2nd Pt. Cicilia & Clorinda i. iii, in Comedies & Trag. 271   I know his crimes lye too heavy on his mind to listen to what I shall say of Love or Reason.
1722   D. Defoe Moll Flanders 104   I had now such a load on my Mind that it kept me perpetually waking.
1741   S. Richardson Pamela III. xxxiii. 325   If you have any thing upon your Mind to say, let's have it.
1846   C. Dickens Dombey & Son (1848) ix. 81   I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with anything on your mind.
1853   E. Bulwer-Lytton My Novel II. vi. v. 108   I asked him if he had not anything on his mind.
1864   Ld. Tennyson Enoch Arden in Enoch Arden, etc. 22   Annie, there is a thing upon my mind.
1921   G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah ii. 38   The tweeded gentleman. (Coming in very slowly.) I have something on my mind.
1955   L. P. Hartley Perfect Woman xxvi. 233   Isabel saw that Harold had something on his mind: he looked slightly portentous.
1973   K. Carter Roots in S. Henderson Understanding New Black Poetry iii. 312   Woke up dis Mornin' wid Jesus On my min. Oh, yes, lor' Jesus on my min.
1998   S. Faulks Charlotte Gray i. v. 45   Is there something on your mind, Miss Gray?.. You've appeared somewhat distracted over the last two or three days. I wondered if something was troubling you.

a1640—1998(Hide quotations)

 
 

 g. only (or all) in the mind : imaginary or illusory, with no basis in external reality.

1676   Earl of Orrery Eng. Adventures i. 19   My Father..knew that happiness has its solid Throne only in the mind.
1732   G. Berkeley Ess. New Theory of Vision (new ed.) §lxxvii, in Alciphron II. 288   All which visible Objects are only in the Mind; nor do they suggest ought external..otherwise than by habitual Connexion as Words do Things.
1753   S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison II. xxvii. 248   I started, and even trembled. What I suffered there, was all in my mind.
1812   J. Baillie Dream ii. ii, in Series of Plays III. 132   Oh! they were terrible!—But they are All in my mind as the indistinct horrors of a Frenzied imagination.
1874   W. Wallace tr. G. W. F. Hegel Logic §42. 75   That unity of self-consciousness,..Kant calls transcendental..; and he meant thereby that this unity was only in our minds, and did not attach to the objects apart from our knowledge of them.
1910   Encycl. Brit. I. 54/2   G. B. Riccioli concluded that they existed only in the minds of the observers, and were due to instrumental and personal errors.
1976   in M. Frayn Alphabet. Order i. 15   Well, it's all in the mind, isn't it? It's all up here.
1992   New Republic 13 Apr. 29/1   Vogel's surrogate heroine, Anna, undertakes that European journey—but it takes place only in her mind.
1998   New Scientist 20 June 5/1   The ‘green flash’ that watchers sometimes report at sunset is often all in the mind, a scientist from California reported last week.

1676—1998(Hide quotations)

 

 h. As a mass noun: the mental entity or faculties, esp. as opposed to matter (see matter n.1 21). Cf. sense 19j.

1745   E. Young Consolation 112   And by the Mandate of whose awful Nod, All Regions, Revolutions, Fortunes, Fates, Of High, of Low, of Mind and Matter, roll Thro' the short Chanels of expiring Time..In absolute Subjection!
1796   Monthly Rev. 20 App. 569   Tracy read a paper [at the National Institute of France]..and proposed to call the philosophy of mind, ideology.
1850   R. W. Emerson Swedenborg in Representative Men iii. 143   It is remarkable that this man, who..saw the poetic construction of things, and the primary relation of mind to matter, remained entirely devoid of the whole apparatus of poetic expression.
1879   W. L. Lindsay Mind in Lower Animals I. 51   Little is at present known of the phenomena of mind in the lowest classes of animals.
1898   J. R. Illingworth Divine Immanence i. §1. 4   Thus matter, as we know it, is everywhere and always fused with mind.
1919   Mind 28 58   The pluralist..recognizes that the fundamental fact from which the start must be made, is not a dualism of matter and mind, but the unity of the individual experience, which comprises a duality of subject and object.
1992   New Perspectives Q. Spring 10/1   The rational liberalism of the West wholly embraces the Cartesian world view that..recognized only the existence of mind and matter, leaving non-human life entirely out of the picture.

1745—1992(Hide quotations)

 
 i.
 

 (a) to open one's mind : to be willing to accept, to be receptive to; (hence) to open someone's mind .

1748   J. Hervey Contempl. Night in Medit. & Contempl. (ed. 4) II. 100   Opening our minds to the Irradiations of his Wisdom.
1792   M. Wollstonecraft Vindic. Rights Woman v. 196   Would it not be a refinement on cruelty to open her mind only to make the darkness and misery of her fate visible?
1835   J. P. Kennedy Horse-shoe Robinson I. viii. 154   I hope thereby to open his [sc. the reader's] mind to a more adequate conception of the character of Philip Lindsay.
1910   W. Lippmann Open Mind 800   The professors couldn't prove it wasn't, so James was willing to open his mind to evidence.
1968   T. Wolfe Electric Kool-aid Acid Test v. 60   The whole other world that LSD opened your mind to.
1992   Face Apr. 15/2   Hopefully 3D graff will open people's minds to the fact that you can adapt graffiti to anything you want.

1748—1992(Hide quotations)

 

 (b) to close one's mind : to be unreceptive to, to refuse to accept; to ignore.In quot. 1829   in figurative context.

1797   A. Radcliffe Italian I. iii. 95   I do not wilfully close my mind against examination, but am directed by proof and yield to conviction.
1829   T. Hood Dream Eugene Aram in Gem 1 110   O God, could I so close my mind, And clasp it with a clasp.
1876   F. Harrison Choice Bks. (1886) i. 2   To stuff our minds with what is simply trivial..is to close our minds to what is solid and enlarging.
1917   N.E.D. at Stop v. 8 a   To atop (one's own or another's ear or ears). Also fig., to..refuse to listen, to close one's mind against arguments, etc.
1996   Kindred Spirit Summer 28/1   It is when we are feeling mean and misanthropic, when we have closed our minds to our own freedom and have set our faces against the world, that we objectify money.

1797—1996(Hide quotations)

 

 j. mind over matter: (esp. of the mind's curative effect on bodily illness) mental and psychical control over, or influence on, physical phenomena; (also) the supposed ability to manipulate physical objects by psychokinesis. Also the triumph (also supremacy, etc.) of mind over matter . Cf. sense 19h.

1808   H. More Cœlebs in Search of Wife I. vii. 95   He would have selected those two instances as the triumph of mind over matter.
a1880   J. Brougham Capt. Cuttle (1884) iv. 15/2   There's wisdom!—there's a triumph of mind over matter.
1906   E. Œ. Somerville & ‘M. Ross’ Some Irish Yesterdays 89   The Mahatma maintained a Druid silence; it was not for him to comment on the eternal supremacy of Mind over Matter.
1943   Jrnl. Parapsychol. 7 20   The ‘psychokinetic’ or ‘PK’ effect..is colloquially called ‘mind over matter’, and means the direct influencing of a physical system by the action of a subject's effort, without any known intermediate energy or instrumentation.
1994   Daily Mirror 4 Oct. (TV Daily Suppl.) 4/6   Alternative methods of treatment involving mind over matter are investigated by medicine man Dr Rob Buckman.

1808—1994(Hide quotations)

 

 k. the mind boggles : one becomes astonished or overwhelmed when trying to contemplate something, or at the prospect of contemplating something (cf. boggle v. 1).

1899   Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 20 439   If the MSS, in attributing works to ancient authors, only furnish us with a thesis to prove, there is opened a vista of scepticism and material for dissertations at which the mind boggles.
1942   Econ. Jrnl. 52 281   The mind boggles at the thought of one after another of the statutory monopolies, after a similar survey, coming to similar conclusions.
1971   N.Z. Listener 16 Aug. 50/3   The mind boggles. The dreadful deeds the little monkeys might perpetrate. Tch tch.
1999   Machine Knitting Monthly Dec. 15/1   The mind boggles at the thought of knitting any intarsia design that requires 32 colours across a row!

1899—1999(Hide quotations)

 
 

 l. to spring to (one's) mind : to occur immediately to a person; to be one's first or instinctive thought.

[1783   S. Johnson Let. 20 Aug. (1994) IV. 187   I read your last letter with great delight, but when I came to love and honour, what sprang in my Mind?—How lov'd, how honoured once, avails thee not.]
1910   Internat. Jrnl. Ethics 21 14   Are they not just typical of the incidents which most readily spring to mind when we pronounce prediction impossible?
1939   J. S. Huxley ‘Race’ in Europe 28   Napoleon, Shakespeare, Einstein, Galileo—a dozen great names spring to mind.
1962   A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio ix. 153   When we talk about the fade, the first thing that springs to mind is the use to which it is put in dramatic productions.
1991   G. Carey I Believe xi. 74   Let me tell you of the images that spring to my mind when we talk about water.

1910—1991(Hide quotations)

 

 m. British colloquial. a mind like a sink (also sewer, cesspool) : an imagination that tends to put an indecent construction on events, or which is filled with lewd ideas and images. Also one's mind is (like) a sink (also sewer, cesspool) .

1920   ‘K. Mansfield’ Let. 23 Mar. (1993) III. 255   Bunny talks as Ive never heard a prostitute talk—or a woman in a brothel. Her mind is a sink: shes sex mad.
1932   A. Christie Thirteen Probl. x. 170   And if one tries to warn them..they tell one that one has a Victorian mind—and that, they say, is like a sink.
1949   P. G. Wodehouse Uncle Dynamite viii. 129   He concluded by saying it was a pity that some people, whose identity he did not specify, had minds like sinks.
a1966   M. Allingham Cargo of Eagles (1968) viii. 101   Norah, a toothy vixen..with a mind like a cesspool.
1970   S. Taylor Murder grows Roots ii. 16   [She] said he'd probably gone off with some woman. Her mind's like a sink.
1974   L. Deighton Spy Story xix. 208   Your mind is like a sewer, pal.
2005   Peterborough Evening Tel. (Nexis) 4 Oct.   If I see a big one in my bedroom (spider that is, for those with a mind like a sewer) then my legs go all weak.

1920—2005(Hide quotations)

 
 20.

 a. The healthy or normal condition of the mental faculties; mental balance; sanity. Now chiefly in phrases indicating (in negative contexts) the absence of rationality, as to lose one's mind , etc. Also formerly †past one's mind , (Scottish) †by one's mind : = out of one's mind at sense 20c.to be in one's right mind: see right adj. 8a.

c1380   Sir Ferumbras (1879) 2584 (MED)   Nad sche þer noȝt of hure bone fulich y-mad an ende, Or heo for hunger had forgone hir wit & ek hur mende.
c1425   J. Lydgate Troyyes Bk. (Augustus A.iv) iv. 7074 (MED)   He restored was To mynde ageyn, & ete no more no gras.
c1450  (▸1369)    G. Chaucer Bk. Duchess 511   He had wel nygh lost hys mynde.
c1450  (c1380)    G. Chaucer House of Fame 564   With that vois..My mynde cam to me ageyn.
1509   A. Barclay Brant's Shyp of Folys (Pynson) f. cxxiiiv   Than lepe they about as folke past theyr mynde.
1596   J. Dalrymple tr. J. Leslie Hist. Scotl. (1895) II. 353   Normond with this ansuer was halfe by his mynd.
1608   W. Shakespeare King Lear xxi. 60   I feare I am not in my perfect mind .  View more context for this quotation
1659   E. Elys Divine Poems 16   On Thee I thought, and straight I lost my Minde!
1735   G. Berkeley Def. Free-thinking in Math. §8 in Wks. (1871) III. 306   By such as are in their right mind.
1766   W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. II. xix. 291   It hath been said, that a non compos himself, though he be afterwards brought to a right mind, shall not be permitted to allege his own insanity in order to avoid such grant.
1847   Ld. Tennyson Princess vii. 146   And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind.
1912   Church Q. Rev. 73 326   We will classify them all (idiots, imbeciles, or feeble-minded) under the name ‘Ament’, meaning people without mind in contrast to the class of Dement, which we will assume to mean all those who have been sane, but have lost their mind.
1960   Blackwood's Mag. July 71   No fielder in his right mind attempts a running catch.
1971   Jamaican Weekly Gleaner 3 Nov. 5/1   Mi dear Mam. Last week I got this bright idea that I would beg little time off and go get the mind together with the long weekend in Miami.
1993   B. Anderson All Nice Girls (1994) xii. 222   Her mind's gone but she's happy there.
1997   M. Collin & J. Godfrey Altered State ii. 80   Good people I know lost their minds,..mainly through tripping.

c1380—1997(Hide quotations)

 
 

 b. In phrases, frequently in legal contexts (esp. in or concerning wills) or in imitation of legal use, expressing a declaration of a person's mental health: of sound (or unsound) mind , †in good mind, whole of mind, etc.

c1384   Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) Mark v. 15   Thei camen to Jhesu, and thei seen hym [sc. Legion]..sittynge clothid, and of hoole mynde.
1395   in F. J. Furnivall Fifty Earliest Eng. Wills (1882) 4   I, Alice West,..in hool estat of my body, and in good mynde beynge.
1402   Will in R. W. Chambers & M. Daunt Bk. London Eng. (1931) 211 (MED)   I John Girdeler of Harfeld, in god mynde and saf memorye, make my testement.
1418   in F. J. Furnivall Fifty Earliest Eng. Wills (1882) 30   Hole of mynde & in gode memorie beyng.
1430   in F. J. Furnivall Fifty Earliest Eng. Wills (1882) 85   Beyng in full mende.
1438–9   in F. J. Furnivall Fifty Earliest Eng. Wills (1882) 129   Beyng yn hole mynde & goode witte.
1451   in J. Raine Testamenta Eboracensia (1855) II. 149 (MED)   I, dame Heleyn Gilson..hole in witt and mynde.
1469   in J. B. Clare Rec. Wenhaston & Bulcamp, Suffolk (1906) 30   I, Richard Pepyn of Wenyston, beying hool in my witt and clare mende make and ordeyne ys my last will.
1562   in Carte Monalium de Northberwic (1847) 86   The said Jhone being seik in bodye and haill in mynd.
1581   G. Pettie tr. S. Guazzo Ciuile Conuersat. (1586) i. 4   If I flatter not my selfe, I haue a whole minde within my crasie bodie.
1693   Humours & Conversat. Town 32   A debilitated Body, and unsound Mind.
1789   J. Bentham Introd. Princ. Morals & Legisl. xvi. p. cclxvii   Just so long as his inability is supposed to continue: that is,..in the case of insanity, till he be of sound mind and understanding.
1805   W. Cruise Digest Laws Eng. Real Prop. V. App. 523   To prove that the said Nicholas was of unsound mind at the time of the said fine taken.
1826   W. Roberts Treat. Wills (ed. 3) I. 32   No person who is not of a reasonable mind and sane memory can make any disposition by will.
1874   A. C. Swinburne Bothwell ii. ix. 157   I am..unsure if I be whole of mind. I think I have been estranged from my right wits.
1884   Law Rep. 27 Chanc. Div. 119   The soundness or unsoundness of mind of the alleged lunatic.
1988   B. W. Aldiss Forgotten Life ix. 136   This is my life history, which I set down this 8th day of January 1987, being of sound mind more or less.
1999   Daily Tel. 27 July 5/5   [He] told him that the Miss Kay he had met was in sound mind and had made her will voluntarily and without any obvious pressure.

c1384—1999(Hide quotations)

 

 c. out of one's mind (also †out of mind) and variants: having lost control of one's mental faculties; insane, deranged, delirious. Now also in weakened use (with a preceding past participle): suffering from a particular condition to a very high degree, as stoned (also bombed, pissed, etc.) out of one's mind (slang): stupefied, extremely intoxicated, or incapacitated by drink or drugs. bored out of one's mind : beside oneself with boredom, etc.out of one's tiny mind: see tiny adj. d.

a1387   J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1865) I. 421 (MED)   He..sigh aboue a grisliche kynde, And fil anon out of his mynde.
c1390   G. Chaucer Pardoner's Tale 494   He seith he kan no difference fynde Bitwix a man that is out of his mynde And a man which that is dronkelewe.
c1425   J. Lydgate Troyyes Bk. (Augustus A.iv) i. l. 4276 (MED)   Almost for wo he went out of his mynde.
a1500  (?a1450)    Gesta Romanorum (Harl. 7333) (1879) lxix. 317 (MED)   Þe maister of þe ship was halfe out of mynde.
a1617   P. Baynes Comm. Epist. First Chapter Paul to Ephesians (1618) viii. 208   Through phrenzie out of our right mindes.
1780   S. Lee Chapter of Accidents v. i. 82   It must be Bedlam; for the old gentleman is out of his mind, that's a sure thing!
1849   T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. v. 663   He was drunk, they said, or out of his mind, when he was turned off.
1867   G. MacDonald Ann. Quiet Neighbourhood I. vii. 191   Miss Oldcastle thought she was out of her mind, and spoke of an asylum.
1948   T. Heggen Mister Roberts xi. 140   At night, awakening him from sleep, an object dropped on the deck overhead would send him nearly out of his mind with rage.
1964   N.Y. Times Mag. 23 Aug. 64/2   He was bombed out of his mind.
1968   Listener 28 Nov. 735/2   He would only be taken in charge if he was drunk: were he to spend his ten shillings on getting stoned out of his mind the police would happily accommodate him.
1984   B. MacLaverty Cal (new ed.) 95   When I saw matches being lit in that cottage I was terrified out of my mind.
1987   E. Newby Round Ireland in Low Gear x. 169   She was bored out of her mind, she said, by winter in Glengarriff.
1992   J. MacKenna Fallen & Other Stories 62   Not when I'm pissed out of my mind.
1995   P. McCabe Dead School (1996) 175   ‘What do you think you're doing!’ he would yell at him. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
1999   I. Rankin Dead Souls xi. 67   The members of the public sat there with hands clasped between knees, or with heads angled to the ceiling, bored out of their minds.

a1387—1999(Hide quotations)

 
 21.

 a. A person's cognitive, rational, or intellectual powers; the intellect; esp. as distinguished from the emotions, and frequently opposed to heart (cf. heart n. 9a). Also (in extended use, by metonymy): a person of intellectual prowess; an intellectual.At times, the association with heart has led to the acquisition by mind of some of the connotations of heart when the two are juxtaposed. See also heart n. 6b.

c1384   Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) Matt. xxii. 37   Thou shalt loue the Lord thi God, of al thin herte, and in al thi soule, and in al thi mynde.
a1425  (c1385)    G. Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde (1987) iv. 673   She..hadde hire herte and al hire mynde On Troilus iset.
1509   S. Hawes Pastime of Pleasure xxx. xii   It was no wonder that I was amazed, My herte and minde she had so tane in cure.
1562   in J. Stuart Sel. Rec. Kirk Aberdeen (1846) 5   With the haill man, saull, hart, mynd, mycht and stryncht.
1609   Bible (Douay) I. Deut. xi. 18   Put these my wordes in your hartes and mindes.
1622   H. Sydenham Serm. (1626) 30   God doth concurre to the excæcation and hardening both of the minde and heart.
c1639   A. Cowley On Death of Sir H. Wotton   He did the utmost Bounds of Knowledge find, He found them not so large as was his Mind.
1697   J. Locke Let. 10 Apr. in Wks. (1714) III. 561   Even the largest Minds have but narrow Swallows.
1733   J. Swift Epist. to Lady 6   I shall..with Books my Mind embellish.
1748   S. Richardson Clarissa VII. xxxi. 129   But these great minds cannot avoid doing extraordinary things!
1785   F. Pilon Fair Amer. (front matter)   But great minds can descend with ease, from the dignity of their spheres, to the contemplation of the most minute objects.
1806   H. Siddons Maid, Wife, & Widow I. 51   Every feeling of his heart and mind revolted from what he heard.
1819   Lady Charleville in Lady Morgan Passages from Autobiogr. (1859) 254   Lady Crewe..had mind and heart, and indeed some fine remains of a race that has passed away.
1863   J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. VII. 74   The service of God was asserted to be a reasonable service of the mind and heart, and not a magical superstition.
1951   N. Mitford Blessing xi. 118   If you don't empty your mind and heart of sexual jealousy..you will never be happy with me.
1968   A. K. Armah Beautyful Ones are not yet Born vi. 85   In response to her look my mind and heart opened themselves up to the pain of deep feeling.
1991   J. Phillips You'll never eat Lunch in this Town Again (1992) 454   Here we are in Sri Lanka hanging out with one of the great minds of the second half of the twentieth century.
1999   New Yorker 18 Oct. 210/2   The consulting firms have figured out how to win over the hearts and minds of..twenty-one-year-olds.

c1384—1999(Hide quotations)

 

 b. spec. Intellectual quality, keenness of intellect, mental power; frequently in man of mind.absence of mind, presence of mind: see absence n. 3, presence of mind n. at presence n. Phrases 4.

a1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xviii. xlii. 1191   Þese bestes han witte and mynde passynge oþere bestes.
c1595   Countess of Pembroke Psalme xliv. 79 in Coll. Wks. (1998) II. 37   His eye of deepest minde Deeper sincks then deepest working.
1609   J. Davies Humours Heau'n on Earth 26   Put on the mind that men of mind becomes.
1806   T. Jefferson Let. 5 July in Writings (1984) 1165   The imputation was one of those artifices used to despoil an adversary of his most effectual arms; and men of mind will place themselves above a gabble of this order.
1826   B. Disraeli Vivian Grey I. ii. x. 144   Blue eyes, lit up by a smile of such mind and meaning!
1855   Ld. Tennyson Maud i. vii, in Maud & Other Poems 4   But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind.
1864   J. Bryce Holy Rom. Empire iv. 46   The Papacy..under the guidance of her greatest minds, of Hildebrand, of Alexander [etc.].
1876   ‘Ouida’ In Winter City iii   You mean there can be no mind in an imitation.
1926   W. S. Bruce Salt & Sense viii. 64   The men of money are supposed to be above the men of mind. That ranking is entirely wrong.
1988   M. Brodsky X in Paris 165   For a moment I feared he might be envious of the Activity, devirulizing or not, taking place circumambiently, in which case he was no longer any man of mind.
1996   F. Popcorn & L. Marigold Clicking p. x   Lastly,..to Kate Newlin, who spent many of her weeknights and weekends contributing her clear, keen mind, marketing prowess, astounding strategic thinking, and her heart.

a1398—1996(Hide quotations)

 
 

 c. Proverb. great minds think alike.

1728   J. Oldmixon Bouhours' Arts Logick & Rhetorick 125   Great Minds often think alike on the same Occasions.
1873   Appletons' Jrnl. 27 Dec. 813   But Mamma Mullein had for her consolation the adage that great minds think alike.
1922   Punch 27 Dec. 601   Lord Riddell considers that Mr. H. G. Wells is one of the world's greatest minds. Great minds, as the saying is, think alike.
1950   S. Truss Never 194   Great minds think alike.
1991   J. Cairney Worlds Apart 241   ‘Great minds think alike,’ she said as if she'd invented the aphorism. Mrs Beattie nodded, ‘Ay.’ she said, ‘fools seldom differ!’

1728—1991(Hide quotations)

 

Compounds

 C1.
 a.
 

  mind-conditioning   n.

1945   R. A. Knox God & Atom ix. 131   There is a steady policy, all over eastern Europe, of anti-religious mind-conditioning.
1990   Health Now Nov. 3/1   Clearly mind conditioning through knowledge and experience has given many people great faith in orthodox doctors and surgeons.

1945—1990(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-content   n.

1918   Mind 27 307   Dr. Bosanquet means (I think) that reality is ‘in the mind’ in its fulness and completeness, and the more so the completer is it—we have mind grasping a fuller real, and reality elevated (as it were) into mind-content.
1936   H. Mulder Cognition & Volition in Lang. 163   The intellectual components of a mind-content.

1918—1936(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind control n.

1940   N. R. Jones in Astonishing Stories Aug. 46/1   The robots..were operated entirely by the mind control of the Aemts.
1954   T. S. Eliot Confidential Clerk i. 33   No, Claude, he only teaches thought control. Mind control is a different matter.
1978   J. O'Neill Land under Eng. Introd. 6   Their techniques of education and mind-control have become developed to the point where they can read another's thoughts.
1986   D. Koontz Strangers i. ii. 208   Intelligence organizations are not the only groups who're familiar with mind-control techniques. So are some crackpot religious cults, fanatical political fringe groups.

1940—1986(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-dependence   n.

1916   Mind 25 311   This union of ideal and of idea, of value and mind-dependence is probably requiste for any form of idealism.
1952   Philos. Rev. 61 102   In each point of view there is an ‘irreducible medium’—in idealism, ‘mind-dependence’ of the object of knowledge and, in realism, ‘mind-independence’ of the object of knowledge.
1994   Philos. Q. 44 378   Mohanty discusses the central place in Indian thought of the idea of mind dependence and the foundational nature of consciousness.

1916—1994(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-doctor   n.

[1885   J. G. Whittier Prose Wks. (1889) II. 314   Jacob Perkins, in drawing out diseases with his metallic tractors, was quite as successful as modern ‘faith and mind’ doctors.]
1890   W. James in Scribner's Mag. Mar. 372   Simple commands were fruitless; but M. Janet at last hit upon an artifice, which shows how many resources the successful mind-doctor must possess.
1940   Mind 49 352   It is a book worth reading..because of her power to look afresh at what is done and what should be done by the mind-doctor.
1998   Daily Tel. (Electronic ed.) 14 Sept.   They [sc. a rugby team] admit to twin crises of confidence and identity, so a mind-doctor seems to be a greater priority than a new chief coach.

1890—1998(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-event   n.

1936   W. H. Auden Look, Stranger! 37   Every tramp's a landlord really In mind-events.
1982   P. C. Birkinshaw in UCT Stud. in Eng. (Univ. Cape Town) Oct. 47   The influence referred to came from Europe, and is the Cartesian separation of language as a mind-event from speech as a body-event.

1936—1982(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-force   n.

1861   J. B. Dalgairns Holy Communion i. 13   It is hard to say whether we know not more of mind-force..than of the strange aggregate of wondrous forces which we call matter.
1937   R. A. Wilson Birth of Lang. 82   The life-force, or mind-force..works within the sensuous material of the world.
1991   Callaloo 14 499   Set in seventeenth-century Africa, eighteenth-century New York, and nineteenth-century Louisiana, this book is the struggle between Doro, a mindforce, and Anyanwu, a shape-shifter.

1861—1991(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-hunger   n.

1883   Overland Monthly Dec. 636   Then the lunch bell rang, and mind-hunger was set aside for body-hunger.
1941   V. Woolf Between Acts 22   No one ventured so long a journey, without staving off possible mind-hunger, without buying a book on a bookstall.

1883—1941(Hide quotations)

 
 

mind-malady   n. Obsolete

1647   T. Fuller Cause Wounded Conscience iv. 25   There is such a gulfe of disproportion betwixt a Mind-malady and Body-medicines.
1894   Harper's Mag. May 833   Every now and again..the pangs of Little Billee's miserable mind-malady would shoot through him like poisoned arrows.

1647—1894(Hide quotations)

 

mind parts   n. Obsolete rare

a1586   Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) iv. sig. Ll5   Thinking perchaunce her feeling sence might call her mind partes vnto her.

a1586—a1586(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-physician   n.

1833   J. S. Mill Let. 9 Mar. (1910) I. 38   So my case must be left to nature, I fear: there is no mind-physician who can prescribe for me, not even you, who could help whosoever is helpable.
1968   Punch 2 Oct. 475/1   ‘But,’ some critic's sure to say, ‘This desire for amorous play In laboratory conditions Now is thought by mind-physicians To be just a new perversion Vitiating each assertion Based upon the normalcy Of your abnormality.’

1833—1968(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-picture   n.

1841   R. W. Emerson in Dial Oct. 273   His, unlike those of most poets, are eye-pictures, not mind-pictures.
1945   R. Knox God & Atom ix. 117   We are dealing..with mind-pictures.
1993   A. Gay Brooch of Azure Midnight (BNC)    Mind-picture: her mother, towering from a toddler's perception, changing a story-cube for her daughters.

1841—1993(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-searching   n.

1940   W. S. Churchill Into Battle (1941) 229   Untiring vigilance and mind-searching must be devoted to the subject.
1959   Brno Stud. in Eng. 1 128   That Gissing had considerable mind-searchings over this incident we cannot doubt.

1940—1959(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-wandering   n.

1858   J. Hollingshead in Househ. Words 10 July 79/1   The mind wanderings of poor Esther Barnard were of great importance in making out a case against him.
1890   W. James Princ. Psychol. I. xi. 417   This reflex and passive character of the attention..never is overcome in some people, whose work, to the end of life, gets done in the interstices of their mind-wandering.
1925   C. Fox Educ. Psychol. 335   Simply as a result of mind-wandering due to extraneous incentives or impulses of some other kinds of activity.
1994   J. Kelman How Late it Was 35   The present situation, the one he was in right now, that was what he was to examine; nay mind wanderings.

1858—1994(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-world   n.

1861   F. Browne in Chambers's Jrnl. 4 May 283/1   Yet over the prison-house at times, Great thoughts and voices go, That wake with the mind-world's mighty chimes, Their buried life below.
1890   W. James Princ. Psychol. I. vi. 154   Somewhere, then, there is a transformation... The question is, Where—in the nerve world or in the mind-world?
1951   W. de la Mare Winged Chariot 44   The world without; the mind-world in our head.
1988   Callaloo 35 393   The mind-world wherein the novel must be concretized is one of myth/reality, magic/not-so-magic structures of containment (castles, closets, huts), and heroic/anti-heroic exploits.

1861—1988(Hide quotations)

 
 b.
 

  mind-altering adj.

1961   Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent 21 Feb. a7   The scientist conceded that chemical counter-agents conceivably could be produced to nullify the effects of the mind-altering chemicals.
1999   A. Arensberg Incubus iv. x. 110   Had she..taken mind-altering drugs that could repeat without warning.

1961—1999(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-changing adj.

1597   T. Morley Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke 116   What strange humor or mind-changing opinion tooke you this morning?
1956   A. Huxley Let. 14 Mar. (1969) 791   Soma, in India, was taken only by the priests... I dare say some of the tropical takers of mind-changing stuff may have hit upon the Indian device independently.
1973   Houston Chron. 14 Oct. (Texas Mag.) 4/1   PDAP defines mind-changing chemicals as alcohol, all narcotics, marijuana and such organics as peyote, i.e., anything inducted into the body to alter the mind.
1995   Melody Maker 25 Mar. 37/3   From the deliriously Duck Dunn bass-led ‘One Step Ahead’ to the proudly plush Velvets of ‘She Passes By’.., ‘Slipstream’ is a mind-changing, heart-warming delight.

1597—1995(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-constructed adj.

1930   J. Laird Knowl., Belief & Opinion xii. 284   By a mentefact, I mean that which is mind-constructed.
1940   Mind 49 428   The word as an element in language is a very special kind of fact,..as a thought-thing or mind-constructed thing.
1975   Philos. Rev. 84 605   The world which we believe to exist and which we come to ‘know’ through scientific investigation is a mind-constructed world.

1930—1975(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-dependent adj.

1796   F. Burney Camilla II. iv. v. 365   Time was when I would have changed with the poor mind-dependent Indiana!
1881   A. C. Fraser Life Berkeley i. iii. 32   It is an argument for the phenomenal, and therefore mind-dependent, nature of the material world.
1927   Aristotelian Soc. Suppl. Vol. 7 56   Even if sense-data and images, or presentations, are taken to be existentially and qualitatively mind-dependent, to ‘inspect’ them will plainly be a process very different from that of noticing or scrutinizing mental operations.
1994   Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 54 400   There is one sense in which reality is mind-dependent, i.e. reality as we understand it is intrinsically imbued with the categories of the mental.

1796—1994(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-destroying adj.

1854   W. H. C. Hosmer Murdered Czar in Poet. Wks. II. 131   In vain the mind-destroying bowl Was brought his anguish to allay, No draught will ever from his soul The stain of murder wash away.
1886   R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp tr. A. Schopenhauer World as Will & Idea II. 211   A mere juggling with words, of which the most shocking example is afforded us by the mind-destroying Hegelism.
1993   A. Toffler & H. Toffler War & Anti-war xxv. 251   Work, until now brutalizing and mind-destroying for most of those lucky enough to hold a job, can be transformed into something fulfilling and mind-enhancing.

1854—1993(Hide quotations)

 
 

mind-enchanting adj. Obsolete

1603   J. Florio tr. M. de Montaigne Ess. ii. xii. 340   The invention of them [sc. passages out of the Holy Bible] was..very fitly aplied to the defence of this goodly and mind-inchanting science [sc. the search for the Philosophers' stone].
1651   W. Denny Shepherd's Holiday in W. C. Hazlitt Inedited Poet. Misc. (1870) 3   Our shame-fac't embers kindle modest fire, Which mind-enchanting songs do quickly turn To rising flames.

1603—1651(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-infected adj.

a1586   Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1590) i. ix. sig. F6v   These fantasticall mind-infected people, that children & Musitians cal Louers.
1939   R. Pitter Spirit Watches 32   Could but one thought arise within That greatly-sculptured skull..Well might it be for all these millions Mind-infected, mother-betrayed.

a1586—1939(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-made adj.

1877   P. J. Bailey Festus (ed. 10) xxiii. 391   The bard would tell How the soul stands with God, and the unseen Realities round us all; our angel kin, And spheres of heavenly life; the mind-made world, Without, within.
1924   William & Mary Coll. Q. Hist. Mag. 5 306   These men saw life, society and government clearly and simply. Society and government were plastic, mind-made, man-made; there were no obstacles to reason.
1985   ELH 52 489   The mind-made relations which T. H. Green had defined as the hallmark of the real are shown to be as incurably contradictory as Kant's paralogisms, hence indeterminate and unreal.

1877—1985(Hide quotations)

 

mind-mudding adj. Obsolete rare

1642   H. More Ψυχωδια Platonica sig. G4v   To chase away Mind-mudding mist.

1642—1642(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-numbing adj.

1898   F. Hird Cry of Children (ed. 2) ii. 22   The existence of this mind-numbing slavery is only proved by careful examination into individual cases.
1971   Guardian 28 Jan. 11/3   The cost of the gesture could be of mind-numbing proportions.
1998   Newsweek 4 May 30/2   The mind-numbing routine of sitting at the phone, ‘call sheets’ before him, hustling money.

1898—1998(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-opening adj.

[1875   Atlantic Monthly Jan. 47   I thought of the strange mind-opening and knowledge-gaining of those years to youths brought up in the strict seclusion of the community.]
1966   T. Leary Politics of Ecstasy iii. 57   There exist in nature hundreds of botanical species with psychedelic (‘mind-opening’) powers.
1992   N.Y. Rev. Bks. 8 Oct. 5 (advt.)    A remarkable, mind-opening book.

1966—1992(Hide quotations)

 

mind-perplexing adj. Obsolete rare

1631   F. Quarles Hist. Samson §2 8   In whose eares she brake This mind-perplexing secret.

1631—1631(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-ravishing adj.

1593   T. Nashe Christs Teares 10   I for-sooke all my immortall pleasures, and mind-rauishing melody.
1999   Hindu (Electronic ed.) 2 July   I have seen your mind-ravishing form, O Lord!

1593—1999(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-searching adj.

1972   MLN 87 657   A kind of search, with implications for memory and the mind, seems fitting for so mind-searching a poet as Valéry was.

1972—1972(Hide quotations)

 
 

mind-sick adj. Obsolete

1587   W. Harrison Hist. Descr. Iland Brit. (new ed.) ii. i. 138/1 in Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) I   Although manie curious mindsicke persons vtterlie condemne it as superstitious.
1616   J. Lane Contin. Squire's Tale (Douce 170) (1888) i. ix. 139   The drowsie sonn (morn's mind sicke murner) rose.
1838   Southern Literary Messenger 4 597   The mind-sick and restless monk resolved to carry his doubts to the very centre of faith.

1587—1838(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-stretching adj.

1956   Amer. Sociol. Rev. 21 101   It is this mind-stretching quality of the book which makes it particularly valuable.
1998   N.Y. Rev. Bks. 22 Oct. 7 (advt.)    One of the most mind-stretching and inspirational books I've read in a long time.

1956—1998(Hide quotations)

 
 

mind-stricken adj. Obsolete

a1586   Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1590) ii. viii. sig. S7v   This noble-man..had bene so mind-striken by the beautie of vertue in that noble King.
1825   W. Tennant John Baliol I. v. 22   My lady all mind-stricken with a dream!

a1586—1825(Hide quotations)

 

mind-torturing adj. Obsolete rare

1595   S. Daniel First Fowre Bks. Ciuile Warres iii. xciv. sig. Q4v   O thou mind-tortring misery Restles ambition, borne in discontent.

1595—1595(Hide quotations)

 

mind-wearing adj. Obsolete rare

1794   F. Burney Jrnl. 2 May (1973) III. 59   I cannot comprehend how you find time or strength for what overwhelmed me.., without any family toils, or mind-wearing difficulties.

1794—1794(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-weary adj.

1900   Atlantic Monthly July 125/2   He repeats the blunders of the original compositors, even..a workman, mind-weary perhaps at the close of the day, has twice gone wrong on a terminal and transsexed Leonato into Leonata.
1923   U. L. Silberrad Lett. Jean Armiter xiii. 264   But—I am tired! Foot-weary as well as mind-weary.

1900—1923(Hide quotations)

 
 c.
 

  mind-numbingly adv.

1982   Guardian Weekly 28 Feb. 7   Flowing from those decisions there is already talk of breaking the ABM treaty to embark on the mindnumbingly expensive task of developing anti-missile missiles, a course that would drastically shift the current uneasy balance between the super-powers.
1993   Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Sept. 58/1   I'm mind-numbingly tired of reading, in article after article..about celebrities who ‘shun the Hollywood scene’.

1982—1993(Hide quotations)

 
 C2.

  mind candy n. slang (originally and chiefly North American) something which is entertaining but not intellectually demanding (cf. ear candy n. at ear n.1 Compounds 2, eye candy n. at eye n.1 Compounds 4).

1978   Newsweek (Nexis) 6 Nov. 104   Spelling toils like a fiend to turn out what he unashamedly calls ‘mind candy’. He awakes at 6.30 a.m. to phone New York for the ratings.
1993   SFRA Rev. Jan. 108   This book is mind candy, nothing heavy.

1978—1993(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-changer   n.  (a) a person who changes his or her mind;  (b) a psychedelic drug.

1931   Punch 4 Nov. 494/2   Things and opinions change so quickly in these days that no one is going to crow over a graceful mind-changer.
1958   A. Huxley in Sat. Evening Post 18 Oct. 110/3   Within a few years there will probably be dozens of powerful but—physiologically and socially speaking—very inexpensive mind-changers on the market.
1965   Listener 23 Sept. 465/1   It is a powerful mind-changer of the hallucinogenic variety.
1986   Public Opinion Q. 50 225   This error component may be thought of as the net effect of all those uncorrected-for not-homes, nonvoters, undecideds, and mind-changers, plus some random sampling errors.

1931—1986(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-child   n. a child's imaginary playmate.

1928   Daily Express 8 Dec. 4   The imaginative child should be dealt with carefully. Foster his little plays and the mind-child he has created.

1928—1928(Hide quotations)

 

  mind cure   n. the supposed curing of a disease by the mental powers of the healer (frequently attributive).

1855   Asylum Jrnl. No. 11. 161/2   Mind-cure institutions are not often painted by their late inmates in such uniformly roseate colors, as the water-cure institutions.
1902   W. James Varieties Relig. Experience iv. 94   A current..has recently poured over America..to which..I will give the title of the ‘Mind-cure movement’.
1984   D. Cupitt Sea of Faith vi. 157   They are of what used to be called the ‘mind-cure’ type that seeks to relieve guilt and anxiety and to promote personal integration and a heightened self-awareness.
1992   N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 17 May 43/2   Prominent among the late 19th-century ancestors of the recovery movement were the notion of ‘mind cure’ and the New Thought and Christian Science movements.

1855—1992(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-curer   n.  (a) a person who practises mind cure;  (b) a person who cures diseases of the mind.

1856   C. M. Yonge Daisy Chain ii. ix. 427   Dr. May, mind-curer, as well as body-curer.
1886   J. M. Buckley in Cent. Mag. June 234/1   In comparison with the Mormons, Spiritualists, Mind-curers , Roman Catholics, and Magnetizers, the Protestant Faith-Healers can accomplish as much, but no more.
1913   Q. Rev. Jan. 145   Such is the conclusion of a mind-curer on rational lines.
1971   Amer. Q. 23 140   James admired the mind-curers because he assumed that, in spite of their defect of urging a conscious denial of sickness, evil and death, they emphasized ‘a form of regeneration by relaxing’.

1856—1971(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-curist   n. = mind-curer n. (a).

1889   Harper's Mag. Nov. 968/2   This was beyond the reach of the Mind-Curists.
1904   Amer. Jrnl. Relig. Psychol. & Educ. May 80   That kind of giving up, of relaxation, which the Mind-Curist, the Christian Scientist, and the Hypnotizer..attempt to bring about.
1987   Times Lit. Suppl. 27 Dec. 1315/2   The same curiosity about the unconventional led to..a spirited defence of faith-healers, Christian Scientists and ‘mind-curists’.

1889—1987(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-day   n. the day, usually the anniversary itself, on which a person's death is commemorated; = minning day n. at minning n. Compounds.

[eOE   tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) iv. xxxi. 374   [Bishop Eadberht] het ðæt hie þæt dydon ðy dæge, þe his gemynddæg wære and his forðfor.]
c1390  (?c1350)    St. Euphrosyne 665 in C. Horstmann Sammlung Altengl. Legenden (1878) 182 (MED)   Vche ȝeer þei don his mynde-day holde Anon to þis day.
1438   Will in Trans. Bristol & Gloucs. Archaeol. Soc. 1886–7 (1887) 11 157   I bequeth for my mynde day xx li.
1603   J. Stow Suruay of London (new ed.) 110   Robert Chichley Grocer Maior 1422. appoynted..that on his minde day, a competent dinner should bee ordained for 2400 poore men.
1952   D. M. Jones Anathemata v. 162   At every rounded apse-end where the flamens plead his death who is Best and Greatest on the mind-days when we mark with the white stone.

c1390—1952(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-dust   n. Philosophy and Psychology (in materialist hypotheses of evolution) supposed particles of mental substance which exist alongside particles of matter and which combine to form individual minds.

1890   W. James Princ. Psychol. I. vi. 146   Evolutionary psychology demands a mind-dust.
1938   Jrnl. Philos. 35 577   This reality is of the nature of feeling, only simpler. It is a mind-dust whose elements are specks or crumbs of sentience.
1990   Philos. Perspectives 4 215   The mind-dust argument, or something like it, has recently been revived by Thomas Nagel.

1890—1990(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind food   n.  (a) (figurative) something which stimulates the mind;  (b) (chiefly Science Fiction) a substance taken as food or drink containing chemicals which increase one's mental ability.

1932   L. E. Lawes 20,000 Years in Sing Sing ix. 327   I have more than a faint suspicion that a large part of our public dotes upon murders and murder trials and executions just as an equally emotional class of people find relaxation and mind food in the gross exaggerations of intimate life that come out of Reno or Hollywood.
1986   R. Pelton (title)    Mind food and smart pills.
1994   D. Rushkoff Cyberia xviii. 233   Carefully reading the ingredients on the cans of Durk and Sandy mind foods.
1998   S. Reynolds Energy Flash viii. 218   Techno artists..who wanted to make album-length, home-oriented electronic mindfood.

1932—1998(Hide quotations)

 

  mind frame   n. = mindset n.

1982   N.Y. Times (Nexis) 12 May d1/4   ‘The mind frame of people’ is certainly to become more cautious.
1997   Sci. of Mind Dec. 3/2   I'm..beginning to nurture the artist in me and it is scary leaving the security of the 9 to 5 mindframe.

1982—1997(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-healer   n. = mind-curer n.

1905   Daily Chron. 5 May 4/4   ‘I would suggest’, said Mr. Arthur Hallam, of the Psychotherapeutists or Mind-Healers, ‘that you come and see us at work.’
1938   H. G. Wells Apropos of Dolores vi. 304   He began as an Osteopath but afterwards he became a Mind Healer—with Physical Exercises.
1994   Women's Rev. Bks. (Electronic ed.) June 9   She went on to infiltrate and expose matrimonial agencies, baby selling, sham mesmerists, bribe-prone lobbyists, police courts, mind healers and washingmachine swindlers.

1905—1994(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-healing adj. and n.  (a) adj. that heals the mind;  (b) n. = mind cure n.

1826   H. Smith Tor Hill (1838) III. 41   The placid beauties of the country, in whose mind-healing influences he never failed to find consolation.
1883   Mrs. Eddy Let. in Boston Post 7 Mar.   My discovery, in 1866, of the Science of Mind-healing, since named Christian Science.
1891   M. B. Eddy Sci. & Health p. xi   The first school of Christian Science Mind-healing was begun..about the year 1867, with only one student.
1995   Denver Post 9 Apr. b1/2   Even Shanahan will indulge in some mind-healing escapism.

1826—1995(Hide quotations)

 

mind hill   n. Obsolete rare a burial mound or cairn.

a1425  (a1382)    Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Corpus Oxf.) Josh. xxii. 10   Whanne thei weren comen to the mynde hyllis [L. tumulos] of Jordan.

a1425—a1425(Hide quotations)

 

  mind link   n. U.S. Science Fiction a telepathic meeting of minds; also in extended use; cf. mind-meld n.

1954   Authentic Sci. Fiction Monthly Jan. 105/1   Already the mind link was breaking.
1970   K. Laumer House in November vi. 101   He could have..established a mind link with you in infancy, before the pattern of acculturation made such contact impossible.
1985   Computerworld Focus 16 Oct. 63/3   Properly termed a voice/talk-activated word processor, this powerful machine would rival even Mr. Spock's ‘Vulcan mind link’.
1994   Coloradoan (Fort Collins) 1 Jan. a 1/5   The idea behind the event..is to raise peace consciousness by uniting individuals in a ‘global mind-link’.

1954—1994(Hide quotations)

 

mind-making   n. Obsolete rare commemoration.

1496  (c1410)    Dives & Pauper (de Worde) i. iii. 35/1   Euery masse syngynge is a specyall mynde makynge of Crystus passyon.

1496—1496(Hide quotations)

 

  mind map   n. a chart on which information is represented symbolically and organized by mental association rather than by strict logic.

1987   PC Week 3 Nov. 85/3   Mind maps can be used for almost anything—from planning the day, to taking notes, to organizing a presentation or simply exploring one's own thoughts.
1999   N.Y. Times 3 Oct. iii. 4/2   [He] encouraged them to speak freely about their boss, while teaching them to draw mind maps—visual tools that resemble family trees but link words, colors and pictures to express thoughts and ideas.

1987—1999(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-meld   n. Science Fiction a (supposed) technique for the psychic fusion of two or more minds, permitting unrestricted communication or deep understanding (originally from the United States television series Star Trek); also in extended use.

1968   J. M. Lucas Elaan of Troyius 23 May 40   Mr.Spock,..he refuses to talk. I'll need you for the Vulcan mind-meld.
1975   L. Nimoy I am not Spock 106   Mr. Spock communicates with the Horta creature through the Vulcan mind-meld.
1994   Inuit Art Q. Summer 20/3   I wish it could have been a week longer but, still,..I think we had a pretty good mind-meld. There's this whole other culture, this whole other way of being here, of being on the planet.

1968—1994(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-meld   v. Science Fiction intransitive to engage in a mind-meld (also transitive); (hence) to pool ideas, to brainstorm.

1984   Washington Post 2 June c9/1   It's revealed that Spock ‘mind-melded’ with Dr. McCoy (‘Bones’) before sacrificing himself to save the crew.
1988   S. McCrumb Bimbos Death Sun ii. 20   I'll find him if I have to mind-meld the desk clerk!
2000   N.Y. Mag. 24 July 45/3   The next [moment], he's mind-melding with an ABC News producer about educational technology initiatives.

1984—2000(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-melding   n. Science Fiction = mind-meld n.

1968   S. E. Whitfield in S. E. Whitfield & G. Roddenberry Making of ‘Star Trek’ ii. v. 227   Another unique Vulcan ability exhibited by Spock is a type of ESP that the Vulcans refer to as ‘mind-melding’. He can merge his mind with that of another intelligence and can read its thoughts.
1991   Midnight Zoo 1 v. 114/1   Kirk began to make allowances for Spock's reluctance to kill or his vegetarian preferences while taking advantage of his eidetic memory, elapsed time sense, or mind-melding ability.
2005   St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch (Nexis) 2 Sept. b1   The drama is a result of mind-melding between..vice chairman, and..chairman of the business law department, whose vision was to create a teaching tool that didn't sound like Klingon to executives and directors.

1968—2005(Hide quotations)

 

mind place   n. Obsolete rare a shrine or place of pilgrimage commemorating a saint.

c1449   R. Pecock Repressor (1860) 4   Pilgrimage in going to the memorialis or the mynde placis of Seintis.

c1449—c1449(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-sight n.  [after eyesight n.] the ability of the mind to understand, imagine, or penetrate; (also) a mental picture.

1587   Sir P. Sidney & A. Golding tr. P. de Mornay Trewnesse Christian Relig. v. 55   Neither the Sunne nor any thing vnder the Sunne, can well bee seene without the Sunne: likewise neither God nor any thing belonging to God can bee seene without God, how good eyesight or myndsight so euer wee haue.
1849   J. C. Hare Serm. Preacht Herstmonceux Church II. 243   The more we gaze at them the more is our mindsight improved to discern them.
1930   E. Blunden Leigh Hunt ii. 22   The grace which the mind-sight of those merry young scholars awoke in him.
1947   S. Spender Poems of Dedication 27   She drinks his acres of light Which..Beyond mind-sight and eye-sight Reach a womb where his rays Penetrate her night.
1978   P. Audemars Now Dead is any Man 102   He saw once again in his mindsight, with vivid and poignant clarity, some of that tranquil peace.

1587—1978(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-stuff   n. (originally) supposed particles of mental substance in combinations which are perceived as matter; (in later use also) any rudimentary abstract substance from which ideas, images, etc., can be formed.

1878   W. K. Clifford in Mind 3 65   Mind-stuff is the reality which we perceive as Matter. That element of which..even the simplest feeling is a complex, I shall call Mind-stuff. A moving molecule of inorganic matter does not possess mind, or consciousness; but it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff.
1930   A. O. Lovejoy Revolt against Dualism viii. 272   Mind-stuff is not supposed to be the same kind of thing as either data or the awareness of them.
1937   E. Upward in C. Day Lewis Mind in Chains 42   A poet's images or a novelist's characters are not created out of pure mind-stuff, but are suggested to him by the world in which he lives.
1983   M. Carrithers Buddha iii. 44   Poṭṭhapāda then changed tack, and proposed first a Self made not of material, but of mind-stuff, and then one of consciousness alone.
1995   Fortean Times Aug. 52/3   This altogether grander conception of telepathy saw it as an intangible binding force, ineluctably drawing together ‘mind-stuff’ from many quarters, both within and without the psyche of the individual.

1878—1995(Hide quotations)

 

mind-taking   n. Obsolete rare consideration (upon a matter).

c1449   R. Pecock Repressor (1860) 114 (MED)   The remembraunce and mynde taking upon these vij maters is so necessarie a meene into the loue and drede of god.

c1449—c1449(Hide quotations)

 

mind token   n. Obsolete rare a memorial.

a1382   Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1969) Isa. lvii. 8   Behinde þe post þou settedest þi mynde tocne [a1425 L.V. memorial; L. memoriale].

a1382—a1382(Hide quotations)

 

  mind-transference   n. = telepathy n.

1886   Science 17 Dec. 559/1   Mr. Hodgson is now engaged..in some experiments on the subject of mind transference, or the occasional communication of mental impressions independently of ordinary perceptions.
1897   ‘M. Twain’ Following Equator 317   Here was a clear case of mental telegraphy; of mind-transference.
1916   W. D. Howells Daughter of Storage 53   They used to talk..of clairvoyance; of what we call mind-transference, now; of weird coincidences of all kinds.
2000   Providence (Rhode Island) Jrnl.-Bull. (Nexis) 24 Sept. 1K   The police..convince a concerned child psychologist who has unique channeling abilities to hook herself up to the killer's brain via a spiffy looking mind-transference machine.

1886—2000(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind trick   n.  (a) a trick played by the mind; a delusion or illusion;  (b) an act of manipulating someone psychologically, esp. to gain an advantage; see also Jedi mind trick n. at Jedi n. Compounds.

1894   Philadelphia Inquirer 28 Dec. 9/1   It is all a mind trick, that we are in better trim when we are incased in bones, and so we cling to the corset.
1973   R. R. Evans Social Movements viii. 161   I began to lose confidence in my intellect... Everyone had a theory, and all defended their side of the story with every mind-trick they could muster.
2013   New Zealand Herald (Nexis) 25 Dec.   I have to jump into the water at midnight on New Year's Eve... I try to resist each year but they use mind tricks to force me into it.

1894—2013(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-trip   n. a journey taken in the mind alone; a stimulating mental experience, esp. one resembling a drug hallucination; cf. trip n.1 5.

1972   R. Creeley Sitting up to fill Pages in Coll. Poems 1945–75 (1982) 500   Sitting up to fill pages having written the poem following ‘ahead’. Allen's sense so echoes for me—those ‘mind trips’ he gives me the fact and responsibility of.
1977   Washington Post 30 Jan. a1/2   The week-long television movie of ‘Roots’, the eighth and final episode of which appears tonight, is both an extraordinary American history lesson and a mind trip back to slavery in which the viewers experience vicariously the roles of white masters and black slaves.
1990   Rolling Stone 22 Mar. 22/1   ‘The Stone Roses’, the debut album..a mind-trip worth taking.

1972—1990(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-trip   v. intransitive to take a journey in the mind.

1991   Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo) (Nexis) 23 Feb. 7   The beer, wine and frivolity also provide Karl a chance to start mind tripping back into the past. So the film takes on the form of a series of flashback episodes.
1995   Chicago Sun-Times 19 Feb. 6   Scientific researcher William Hurt..is going to end up de-evolving into an ape after spending too much time mind-tripping in a flotation tank?

1991—1995(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-tripping   n. and adj.  (a) n. the action of taking a journey in the mind;  (b) adj. that takes a journey in the mind.

1986   F. Peretti This Present Darkness xxi. 202   Whoever holds the position now can be asked what connection he or she has with..this Universal Consciousness mind-tripping group.
1989   Sound Choice Autumn 61/1   The reading of Psalm 24 here resembles some kind of psyched-out, Afro-acidic mind-tripping.
1994   Billboard (Nexis) 23 July 78   Woodstock '94 concert Aug. 13–14 in Saugerties, N.Y., will get a chance to do a little mind-tripping, sans any illegal substances. Instead, the means will be provided in ‘The Surreal Field’, a six-acre interactive [etc.].
1995   Sante Fe New Mexican 10 Mar. 32/2   They are destined to meet, even if only as players in a well-oiled, mind-tripping game.

1986—1995(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind virus   n. a meme (meme n. 1); an idea, concept, or opinion likened to a virus in being spread rapidly among a large number of people.

1992   R. Dawkins in Independent (Nexis) 2 May 49   If the evolved parasite was the memic descendant of a long line of successful ancestors, we are entitled to expect the typical ‘mind virus’ to be pretty good at its job of getting itself sucessfully replicated.
1994   Daily Tel. 1 Sept. 7/2   ‘St Jude provides confirmation for the existence of human mind viruses,’ they said. A Royal Mail spokesman said it was impossible to estimate the number of St Jude letters in circulation.
1999   New Scientist 13 Mar. 3/3   In its most extreme form, this view is that there is no ‘self’ or ‘I’ at the core of our psychological being—just a ragbag of replicating mind viruses and genetic predispositions.

1992—1999(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-warp   n.  [after time warp n.]  (a) a mental journey through time;  (b) something that disturbs or distorts the mind.

1981   Washington Post 1 Apr. a15/1   Others spoke of mind warps to a limousine in Dallas in 1963 or a sidewalk in New York just three months ago when John Lennon fell.
1983   T. Hughes Starlings have Come in Listener 13 Jan. 20/2   They wrap you Into their mind-warp, assembling a nightmare sky-wheel Of escape.
1994   Independent on Sunday 27 Nov. 29   A happy, quiet sound-clash at a three-way intersection. The East Coast US hip-hop mind-warp of De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, the vibrant collectivism of rival British sound system Soul II Soul, all came together to produce one of the most distinctive débuts of this or any other decade.

1981—1994(Hide quotations)

 
 

  mind-warping adj.  (a) that disturbs or distorts the mind;  (b) that takes a mental journey through time.

1908   Westm. Gaz. 30 Oct. 5/2   Juveniles..have to live through the mind-warping experience of bearing punishment for their own little faults, but at the same time watching those adults who are in charge of them enjoy the pleasures of sin without suffering any inconveniences at all.
1986   City Limits 29 May 85   Tilley writes about an insectoid, mind-warping alien.
2000   Independent (Electronic ed.) 21 Aug. 8   His lawyer..demonstrates with mind-warping sophistry that opposing witnesses' testimonies are motivated not by honour but seething jealousy.

1908—2000(Hide quotations)

 

Derivatives

 
 

  ˈmind-like adj.

1845   P. J. Bailey Festus (ed. 2) 241   And as these specks of light great worlds will prove, When we approach them sometime free from flesh, So too our thoughts will become magnified To mindlike things immortal.
1940   Mind 49 414   The answer, ‘Our mind can grasp the world because the world is mind-like’ is a typical idealistic argument.
1953   J. S. Huxley Evol. in Action iv. 89   All living substance has mental, or we had better say mind-like, properties.
1992   S. Rose Making of Memory iv. 86   Hence the failure of all the previous predictions about just when the AI people would come up with a really mind-like computer, regarded by the Wiener-enthusiasts of the early fifties as certain to arrive by the 1960's.

1845—1992(Hide quotations)

 

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2023).

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