思

• Cognitive/Deliberative: To think, consider, ponder, or plan; the active process of weighing options or reflecting.
• Affective/Emotional: To long for, yearn, or miss; typically used in poetic or personal contexts regarding distant people or places.

• Transitive Verb: Most common usage (e.g., thinking about X).
• Noun: "Thought," "intention," "desire," or "longing."
• Sentence-final position: In early poetry, this is rarely a purely grammatical particle; it typically functions as a nominalized form ("...[there is] this longing"), a modal marker expressing a sigh or lingering emotion, or a verb with an implied object.

• vs 想 (xiǎng): In early texts, 想 leans more toward imagining or visualizing.
• vs 慮 (lǜ): 慮 specifically denotes anxiety, worry, or the meticulous calculation of risk and consequence; 思 is broader and can be serene or purely emotional.

Avoid flattening all instances to "think." The choice between deliberation and yearning is often the pivot upon which the tone of a passage turns.