TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does train of thought mean? 

• TRAIN OF THOUGHT (noun)
  The noun TRAIN OF THOUGHT has 1 sense:

1. the connections that link the various parts of an event or argument together

  Familiarity information: TRAIN OF THOUGHT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRAIN OF THOUGHT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The connections that link the various parts of an event or argument together

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

thread; train of thought

Context example:

he lost the thread of his argument

Hypernyms ("train of thought" is a kind of...):

cerebration; intellection; mentation; thinking; thought; thought process (the process of using your mind to consider something carefully)

 Context examples 

And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The whole composite vision was achieved with the speed of light, producing no pause in the conversation, nor interrupting his calm train of thought.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Difficulty in recollection, or interruption of a train of thought or speech, due to emotional factors.

(Mental Blocking, NCI Thesaurus)

Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been started.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought....

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted the silence of the wood.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

"What's that?" he replied to a question from Olney that broke in upon his train of thought.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She could go there after anything unpleasant below, and find immediate consolation in some pursuit, or some train of thought at hand.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with you.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)