Word.ws English Dictionary

Thorndike

Thorndike proper noun: a surname from Old English.

Proper noun

Thorndike (countable and uncountable, plural Thorndikes)

  1. A surname from Old English.
  2. A town in Waldo County, Maine, United States.
  3. A village in the city of Palmer, Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.

Forms of Thorndike

pluralThorndikes
alternative formThorndyke

Origin of Thorndike

Topographic surname for someone who lived by a sort of palisade made with thornbushes, from Old English þorn (“thornbush”) + dīc (“ditch; dike”). The town was named after Israel Thorndike, a landowner.

Words formed from Thorndike

Questions about Thorndike

What does Thorndike mean?
Thorndike means a surname from Old English.
What part of speech is Thorndike?
Thorndike is a proper noun.

Words near Thorndike in the dictionary

  1. Thorncliff
  2. Thorncliffe
  3. Thorncombe
  4. Thorncreek
  5. Thornden
  6. Thorndike
  7. Thorndikean
  8. Thorndikes
  9. Thorndyke
  10. Thorne
  11. Thorne-Zytkow object

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Thorndike (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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