an archaic or poetic way to say 'it seems to me' or 'I think,' commonly used in older English literature.
From Middle English 'me thinketh,' a contraction of 'it seems to me.' The 'me' is a dative pronoun, and 'thinks' is an impersonal verb form that literally means 'it thinks to me.' Became archaic by the 1600s.
Shakespeare used 'methinks' constantly because it was already old-fashioned even in his time—using archaic language made characters sound noble or dramatic, a trick modern writers still use (like 'thee' and 'thou' in fantasy novels).
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