Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also thinkpad) the head.

1895		Times (Richmond, VA) 6 Oct. 15/6: It now became that His Highness was ‘cracked’; / His ‘think-box’ a whole lot of gray matter lacked.
1902		Alta Vista Jrnl (*KS) 28 Feb. 1/1: ‘We fail to comprehend why he was ever sent to Congress [...] and why he don’t sound his thinkbox to see whether it is empty’.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 58: You want to get them ideas out of your think-box.
1918		letter in The Dump Xmas IV 18: I have put down with pen and (war-time) ink just what happened to come into my think-box (sometimes called brain!).
1921		C.B. Booth ‘Mr Clacksworthy Within the Law’ Detective Story 13 Aug. 🌐 His old think-box is workin’ on more’n one cylinder.
1921		Western Times 4 Mar. 9/7: The mechanism of our think-box has rusted out [...] through dis-use.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 141: We gawdamned poxy-eyed fighters ain’t s’posed to get to have any poncefied lousy brains in our think boxes, are we?
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 76: Head [...] thinkpad.

2. (US, also thought-box) the brain.

1902		Virginia Citizen (Irvington, VA) 4 July 2/1: The newspaper man [...] pusahing the pencil or working his think-box.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 144: I ought to break all indoor records with this thought box of mine.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 215: Set your think-box going and dope out a way for three smart young fellows to grab a chunk of perfectly good green stuff.
1918		Aussie (France) 4 Apr. 2/2: The weary one carefully searched his thought-box, but couldn’t recall the required word.
1924		Lincoln Jrnl Star (NE) 26 June 7/3: I am going to look into my think-box and sort and discard that which doesn’t count.
1934		O. Strange Sudden 10: ‘L’l think-box don’t seem to be workin’,’ the stranger said mockingly.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 25: The most anxious ideas through their thinkboxes trod.
1944		Windsor Star(Ontario) 15 Nov. n.p.: The think-box [...] controls the emotions and keeps us on an even keel.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 192: I must have been busy working the old thinkbox or I’d have woken up to him being a bit on his ear when he first called me over.
1963		Gazette (Grand Forks, BC) 5 Dec. 5/3: My poor brain just seemed to refuse to function [...] I just feel my think box stirring now and trying to kickj its way out of the web surrounding it.
1990		W.D. Myers Mouse Rap 123: The tube went in through the back way, skipping the think mode, which is righteous when you got your think box clogged up with other junk.

1. the brain.

1894		St Joseph Herald (MS) 24 Oct. 4/1: The St Lousis Democracy denounces Ed Butler’s ‘think factory’ and then nominates his partner for office.
1902		‘Hugh McHugh’ Back to the Woods 56: I puzzled my dizzy think-factory for a way out of the dilemma.

2. (US) a research institution.

2000–2003

Webnox Corp HyperDictionary.com 🌐 THINK FACTORY a company that does research for hire and issues reports on the implications.

1. the head.

1828		Bell’s Life in London 18 May 3/2: Read’s peepers were nearly closed and the little one [...] delivered right and left on his thinking box.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Jun. 6/1: Firstly, Webb ‘diatribed’ Sirenree for half-an-hour. [...] and when Henry’s ‘life’ had been metaphorically ‘taken,’ and what remained of his character had been worried into oakum-like shreds, the remorseless Webb wiped the perspiration off the front of his thinking-box and squatted down for a spell.
1888		Kingman Dly Courier (KS) 12 Dec. 4/2: Tom’s father [...] was called Buffalo Head because of the large thinking box he carried above his shoulders.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Dec. 16/2: [H]e hurled the bag with terrific force at the publican. It struck him on the ‘thinking box’ and he dropped instantaneously – to the dodge. The bag [...] weighed about 20 ounces!

2. (Aus./US, also thinking apparatus, ...cap, ...machine, ...stall) the brain.

1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 63: If you spake uv the one, the other is as sure to come afore ye in yer thinking box as two crows of the same color.
1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 12 July 1/3: Trainmer [...] made a pretty delivery with his left on Thacker’s ‘thinking-box’.
1892		Walnut Valley Times (El Dorado, KS) 13 Feb. 4/5: We have squeezed out thinking-box very hard.
1896		E. Glanville Kloof Yarns 57: There’s a powerful thinking machine in a honey-bird.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. Red Page/4: I was avin a screw at that fancy picher uv Enry Lawson on ther Red Page when I got ther idear inter me thinkin stall.
1913		Day Book (Chicago) 19 May 20/1: Fielding [...] is noted for having a quick thinking box.
1917		Buffalo Times (NY) 25 Jan. 18/1: Why don’t ou put on your thinking cap [...] and get to work.
1925		Spokane Dly Chron. (WA) 23 Dec. 4/5: A thinking cap is a splendid thing, / If you bit rightly use it.
1933		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 3 June 12/6: A scheme was hatching in my thinking box.
1939		P. Cheyney Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 81: Any guy who is prepared to strain his thinkin’ box is goin’ to see that these two bozos [...] was playin’ with fire.
1949		I.L. Idriess One Wet Season 27: It’s queer the thoughts that drift through his thinking-box.
c.1953		Babs Gonzales ‘Manhattan Fable’ 🎵 He had a inkling in the back of his thinking cap that he’d better put a period to delivering them small packages.
1956		Province (Vancouver) 24 may 6/3: At the opposite end of a man to his sox / Is a little thing known as his thinking box.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 10: [K]ick them [i.e. employers] clean out of the old thinking box.
1980		M. Melamu ‘Bad Times, Sad Times’ in Mutloatse Forced Landing 46: Her cool behaviour amazes me no end. It makes my thinking-apparatus jam stock-still.
1986		Tampa Trib. (FL) 27 July 9/4: ‘Cocaine, it just kills your thinking box’.
2005		Gazette W6 (Montreal) 17 Dec. W6/1: For my part, I have never heard of a thinking box.

(US black) the brain, the mind.

1941

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 22 Nov. 14: My thinkpad is a drag whe it comes to the triple-quick click.

(US black) the brain; the mind.

1971

H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: think piece n. brain; mind; e.g. What does she use for a think piece?

1. the brain.

1901		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 82: They must have this trite aphorism indelibly written on their think tanks.
1909		Boxing 11 Sept. 7/2: Sam Berger, one of the cutest managers in America [...] and with a ‘thinking tank’ full of strategy.
1911		Louis Chevalier ‘Getting into Society’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 You got it in your think tank you’re an opera gargler too, eh?
1919		Perrysburg Jrnl (Wood Co., OH) 22 May 2/1: Just hold back on the feeds until you let this trickle into your think-tank.
1924		W. James Drifting Cowboy (1931) 24: I didn’t let her know what was going on in my think tank.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 196: That night I got the old think tank working.
1946		R.L. Bellem ‘Latin Blood’ in Speed Detective Aug. 🌐 Things were beginning to click in my thinktank.
1964		Miami News (FL) 24 Apr. 16/1: Former President Harry Truman [...] wants to live ‘as long as my think-tank works’.
1969		A. Buckeridge Trust Jennings (1989) 130: I’ll give my think-tank a stir and see what comes to the top.
1973		A. Buckeridge Speaking of Jennings (1989) 7: Hang on, while I process the data in my think-tank.

2. (US) the head.

1905

Minneapolis Jrnl (MN) 13 Oct. 12/4: Bart has his hair parted down the centreboard of his thinktank.

3. (US campus) a toilet.

1997

Eble Campus Sl. Fall.

see under dick n.¹

to have a good opinion of oneself.

1594

Greene & Lodge Looking-Glass for London and England in Dyce (1861) 123: Believe me, though she say that she is fairest, I think my penny silver, by her leave.