Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Anything

A′ny-thing

,
Noun.
1.
Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatever; thing of any kind; something or other; aught;
as, I would not do it for
anything
.
Did you ever know of
anything
so unlucky?
A. Trollope.
They do not know that
anything
is amiss with them.
W. G. Sumner.
2.
Expressing an indefinite comparison; – with as or like.
[Colloq. or Lowx]
I fear your girl will grow as proud as
anything
.
Richardson.
Any thing, written as two words, is now commonly used in contradistinction to any person or anybody. Formerly it was also separated when used in the wider sense. “Necessity drove them to undertake any thing and venture any thing.”
De Foe.
Anything but
,
not at all or in any respect.
“The battle was a rare one, and the victory anything but secure.”
Hawthorne.
Anything like
,
in any respect; at all;
as, I can not give
anything like
a fair sketch of his trials
.

A′ny-thing

,
adv.
In any measure; anywise; at all.
Mine old good will and hearty affection towards you is not . . .
anything
at all quailed.
Robynson (More’s Utopia).

Definition 2024


anything

anything

English

Pronoun

anything

  1. Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatever; thing of any kind; something or other; aught.
    I would not do it for anything.
    • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate, Prologue:
      Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language [] his clerks [] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.
    • 2013 May 25, No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
      In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.
  2. (with “as” or “like”) Expressing an indefinite comparison.
    • 1916, Edward S. Moffat, Go Forth and Find, page 81-82:
      Perhaps it was this atmosphere of misplacedness and loneliness as much as anything which led her to speak to him one evening in early summer when the office had closed.
Derived terms
Translations

Noun

anything (plural anythings)

  1. Someone or something of importance.
    • 1986, David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly:
      How long does it take to turn you actors into good anythings?
    • 2007 May 6, Cindy Chupack, “An Ancient Coda to My 21st-Century Divorce”, in New York Times:
      So we tried not to talk about first or second anythings until our meeting with the rabbi.
Translations
Related terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English anything, enything, onything, onythynge, from Old English ǣniġe þinga, ǣnġi þinga (literally by any of things), from ǣniġe, instrumental form of ǣniġ (any) + þinga, genitive plural of þing (thing).

Adverb

anything (not comparable)

  1. In any way, any extent or any degree.
    That isn't anything like a car.

References

  • anything in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: near · public · others · #288: anything · matter · passed · true