thing
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- thang (slang, pronunciation spelling, usually used to denote a known fad or popular activity)
- thin' (informal, pronunciation spelling)
- thinge (archaic)
- thynge (obsolete)
- ting (Caribbean creoles, MLE)
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing, from Proto-Germanic *þingą.
Compare West Frisian ding, Low German Ding, Dutch ding, German Ding, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian ting.
The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin rēs, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
thing (plural things)
- That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Luke 1:1:
- Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
- 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48:
- The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you […], "share the things you love with the world" and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.
- A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
- An individual object or distinct entity.
- (informal) A genuine concept, entity or phenomenon; something that actually exists (often contrary to expectation or belief). [from 20th c.]
- Bacon pie? Is that a thing?
- 1993 November 24, The Rush Limbaugh Show:
- Now I don't know how many of those male flight attendants are male lesbians -- you know... (Laughter) Well, it's a thing. I mean, there's a -- it's a -- there's a feminist professor down in Tampa who's discovered a male lesbian
- 2014, Marianna Papastephanou, Torill Strand, Anne Pirrie, Philosophy as a Lived Experience
- Frequent statements of the kind “'Race' is not a thing”, “'races,' put simply, do not exist”, “'race' (as each essay subtly shows) simply does not exist” aim to discredit Todorov's claim that a relapse to an ontology of race is at place […]
- 2014, Harper Lin, Croissant Murder:
- Clémence would say that his style was normcore before normcore became a thing. She had to admit that she still found him attractive.
- 2019, Adam Gopnik, A Thousand Small Sanities, Riverrun 2019, p. 88:
- Conservative philosophy, in other words, is, as we say now, a thing and deserves a serious listen.
- (law)
- (somewhat dated, with the) The latest fad or fashion.
- 1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45:
- To go to bed late, to rise late, to breakfast late, to dine late, and to visit late, is to be “quite the thing,” or in good English, which you may understand better than the first phrase, to be in the fashion.
- 2002, Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929, Univ of California Press, →ISBN:
- After a slow start it became the thing to do; 'everyone went to see Pbi-Pbi, no one talked of anything but Pbi-Pbi […] '
- 1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45:
- (in the plural) Clothes, possessions or equipment.
- Hold on, let me just grab my things.
- (informal) A unit or container, usually containing edible goods.
- get me a thing of apple juice at the store; I just ate a whole thing of jelly beans
- 1998 March 24, Geraldo:
- And he invited us all in there and then he kicked the girls out a little bit later and brought me in a couple things of alcohol. And just before he brought in my second bottle of alcohol […]
- 2011, We Were Here, 1:19:48 from the start:
- I remember my friend Ben saying in the old days that he would never go to Costco and buy one of those big things of toilet paper […]
- 2011, Juliette Fay, Deep Down True: A Novel, Penguin, →ISBN:
- I came home and ate a whole thing of ice cream.
- (informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.
- The car looks cheap, but the thing is, I have doubts about its safety.
- (slang) A penis.
- 1962 [1959], William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, New York: Grove Press, page 150:
- “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”
- A living being or creature.
- you poor thing
- she's a funny old thing, but her heart's in the right place
- I met a pretty blond thing at the bar
- That which matters; the crux.
- that's the thing: we don't know where he went; the thing is, I don't have any money
- Used after a noun to refer dismissively to the situation surrounding the noun's referent.
- Oh yeah, I'm supposed to promote that vision thing.
- 1914, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man [playscript]:
- Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing. (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)
- (informal) That which is favoured; personal preference. (Used in possessive constructions.)
- it's not really my thing
- 2002, Joss Whedon et al, "Never Leave Me", Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV episode):
- Tool talk [is] not my thing.
- 2006, Corbin Bleu, interview with Tigerbeat magazine:
- The Internet isn't my thing. I so much rather talk on the phone.
- (informal, with do) One's typical routine, habits, or manner. (Used in possessive constructions.)
- let me do my thing; I'm here doing my thing
- 2006, David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish, Tarcher 2006, "Darkness", p. 91:
- But I'm just a guy from Missoula, Montana, doing my thing, going down the road like everybody else.
- (chiefly historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
- 1974, Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:
- In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]
- 1974, Jakob Benediktsson, Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis, in Saga Íslands, quoted in 1988 by Jesse L. Byock in Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 85:
- The goðar seem both to have received payment of thing-fararkaup from those who stayed home and at the same time compensated those who went to the thing, and it cannot be seen whether they had any profit from these transactions.
- 1988, Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 59:
- All Icelandic things were skap-thing, meaning that they were governed by established procedure and met at regular legally designated intevals at predetermined meeting places.
- 1974, Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:
- (informal) A romantic relationship.
- 2020, David Gomadza, EVELINA: The Alpha:
- I can screw you in front of everyone. I don't care, we have a thing going on, you know. I love you,” she said.
- (informal) A romantic couple.
- Are John and Jennifer a thing again? I thought they broke up.
- (MLE) Alternate form of ting.
- (MLE) Girl; attractive woman.
- Look at the nyash on that thing!
Synonyms[edit]
- (referent that can be used to refer to any entity): item, stuff (uncountable equivalent), yoke (Ireland)
- (penis): see Thesaurus:penis
- (personal preference): see Thesaurus:predilection
Derived terms[edit]
- all things to all people
- anything
- bright young thing
- do one's own thing
- do the decent thing
- everything
- here's the thing
- make a big thing out of
- nothing
- one of those things
- see things
- something
- sweet young thing
- swing of things
- the thing is
- thing of nothing
- thing of the past
- thing-in-itself
- thingal
- thingamajig
- thinger
- thinghood
- thinglike
- thingly
- thingness
- thingo
- thingy
- this, that, and the other thing
- unthing
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Further reading[edit]
- thing in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- thing in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Verb[edit]
thing (third-person singular simple present things, present participle thinging, simple past and past participle thinged)
Anagrams[edit]
Khumi Chin[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-Kuki-Chin *thiŋ, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *siŋ. Cognates include Mizo thing and Zou sing.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
thing
References[edit]
- K. E. Herr (2011) The phonological interpretation of minor syllables, applied to Lemi Chin[1], Payap University, page 44
Middle English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing, from Proto-Germanic *þingą.
Noun[edit]
thing (plural thinges)
Descendants[edit]
References[edit]
- “thing, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Mizo[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *siŋ. Akin to Khumi Chin thing.
Noun[edit]
thing
References[edit]
- Matisoff, James A., Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman, University of California Press.
Old Dutch[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-West Germanic *þing.
Noun[edit]
thing n
Inflection[edit]
Descendants[edit]
- Middle Dutch: dinc
Further reading[edit]
- “think”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012
Old High German[edit]
Noun[edit]
thing
- Alternative form of ding
Old Saxon[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-West Germanic *þing. Compare Old Dutch thing, Old Frisian thing, Old English þing, Old High German ding, Old Norse þing.
Noun[edit]
thing n
Declension[edit]
Descendants[edit]
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɪŋ
- Rhymes:English/ɪŋ/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English informal terms
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Law
- English dated terms
- English slang
- English terms with historical senses
- Multicultural London English
- English verbs
- English terms with rare senses
- English autological terms
- English placeholder terms
- en:Genitalia
- Khumi Chin terms inherited from Proto-Kuki-Chin
- Khumi Chin terms derived from Proto-Kuki-Chin
- Khumi Chin terms inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan
- Khumi Chin terms derived from Proto-Sino-Tibetan
- Khumi Chin terms with IPA pronunciation
- Khumi Chin lemmas
- Khumi Chin nouns
- Middle English terms inherited from Old English
- Middle English terms derived from Old English
- Middle English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- Middle English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- Middle English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Middle English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns
- Mizo terms inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan
- Mizo terms derived from Proto-Sino-Tibetan
- Mizo lemmas
- Mizo nouns
- Old Dutch terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Old Dutch terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Old Dutch terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- Old Dutch terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- Old Dutch lemmas
- Old Dutch nouns
- Old Dutch neuter nouns
- Old High German non-lemma forms
- Old High German noun forms
- Old Saxon terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Old Saxon terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Old Saxon terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- Old Saxon terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- Old Saxon lemmas
- Old Saxon nouns
- Old Saxon neuter nouns