Anything

Pronunciation

• US IPA: /ˈɛniθɪŋ/
• UK IPA: /ˈɛnɪθɪŋ/
• Hyphenation: an + y + thing

Origin

any + thing

Full definition of anything

Adverb

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

Pronoun

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 Chapter 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.
• 2013-05-25, No hiding place, 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, 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

Noun

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, So we tried not to talk about first or second anythings until our meeting with the rabbi.

Usage notes

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.

Related terms