anything
Part of speech: pron
noun
verb
adv
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ís?
Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos
Proto-Indo-European *-kos
Proto-Indo-European *h₁oy-no-kós
Proto-Germanic *ainagaz
Proto-West Germanic *ainag
Old English ǣniġ
Proto-Indo-European *tenk-?
Proto-Indo-European *tenkóm
Proto-Germanic *þingą
Proto-West Germanic *þing
Old English þing
Old English aniþing
Middle English anything
English anything
From Middle English anything, enything, onything, from Late Old English aniþing, from earlier ǣniġ þing (literally “any thing”), equivalent to any + thing.
Base: any
Inflected forms:
form: any thing
pos: pron
tags: alternative
archaic
form: anythings
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: any thing
pos: noun
tags: alternative
archaic
form: anythings
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: anythinging
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: anythinged
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: anythinged
pos: verb
tags: past
form: any thing
pos: verb
tags: alternative
archaic
form: any thing
pos: adv
tags: alternative
archaic
Senses:
gloss: Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatsoever; a thing of any kind; something or other.
pos: pron
examples: I would not do it for anything.
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.
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%.
gloss: Expressing an indefinite comparison.
pos: pron
examples: 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.
gloss: Someone or something of importance.
pos: noun
examples: How long does it take to turn you actors into good anythings?
So we tried not to talk about first or second anythings until our meeting with the rabbi.
gloss: Used as a placeholder verb for any verb out of a set of related verbs.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
colloquial
examples: He wasn't cooking, he wasn't sweeping, he wasn't anythinging!
–I don't want to accompany him! –You never want to anything him!
" No, no," said he, quickly, " I repudiate half compliments of all kinds. I will neither be half-uncled, half-respected, nor, in short, half-anythinged, by you. ' Out upon such half-faced fellowship !' I will either be something, or altogether nothing."
Papa and mamma beg to be very kindly remembered to you" — I'm sure the two old savages wouldn't beg to be kindly anythinged, but it looks well that she should say so, doesn't it? But the end is the best.
“She isn't dating him.”
“Oh. What would you call it? I don’t know what you'd call it.”
“She isn’t anythinging him. She just likes him, and he likes her back. I—I lied earlier.”
I came inclined to be pleased and quite free from racial prejudices, but in 10 months I’ve acquired an instinctive dislike to the Arab voice, the Arab figure, the Arab way of looking or walking or pump shitting or eating or laughing or anythinging.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked, clearly amused. Any normal man would have backed down, but this guy was a piece of work.
“We're not anythinging you,” Laura snapped.
gloss: In any way, any extent or any degree.
pos: adv
tags: not-comparable
examples: That isn't anything like a car.
She's not anything like as strong as me.
Derived words: anythingarian
anything but
anything else
anything goes
anythingism
anything is possible
anything that moves
are you doing anything tomorrow
as anything
ask me anything
don't do anything I wouldn't do
if anything
like anything
not much of anything
or anything
up to anything
Translations: