something

English Online Dictionary. What means something‎? What does something mean?

English

Alternative forms

• somthing (obsolete)
• sumthing (eye dialect)
• sumn, sumting, sumthang (pronunciation spelling)
• sth, sth., sthg, smtg, smth, smtn (abbreviations)

Etymology

From Middle English somþyng, some-thing, som thing, sum thinge, sum þinge, from Old English sum þing (literally “some thing”), equivalent to some +‎ thing. Compare Old English āwiht (“something”, literally “some thing, any thing”), Swedish någonting (“something”, literally “some thing, any thing”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: sŭmʹthĭng, IPA^(key): /ˈsʌm.θɪŋ/
  • (UK, General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): [ˈsɐm̥(p)θɪŋ]
  • (US) IPA^(key): [ˈsʌm̥(p)θɪŋ], [ˈsʌn̪̥θɪŋ] (sometimes reduced to [ˈsʌ(m)ʔm̩] or [ˈsʌɾ̃ɪŋ], or even monosyllabically to [sʌ̃ː] or [sʌˑɪŋ])
• Hyphenation: some‧thing
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

Pronoun

something (indefinite pronoun)

1. An uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing.

   Synonym: (especially in dictionaries) sth

   She looked thirty-something. (anything from thirty-one to thirty-nine years old)
2. (colloquial, of someone or something) A quality to a moderate degree.
3. (colloquial, of a person) A talent or quality that is difficult to specify.

   Synonym: je ne sais quoi

4. (colloquial, often with really or quite) Somebody who or something that is superlative or notable in some way.

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: samting
• → Korean: 썸팅 (sseomting)

Translations

Adjective

something (not comparable)

1. Having a characteristic that the speaker cannot specify.

Adverb

something (not comparable)

1. (degree) Somewhat; to a degree.
2. (colloquial, especially in certain set combinations) Used to adverbialise a following adjective

   I miss them something terrible. (I miss them terribly)

Derived terms

Verb

something (third-person singular simple present somethings, present participle somethinging, simple past and past participle somethinged)

1. (colloquial) Designates an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song.
   • 1890, William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes [4]

     He didn’t apply for it for a long time, and then there was a hitch about it, and it was somethinged—vetoed, I believe she said.

   • 2003, George Angel, “Allegoady,” in Juncture, Lara Stapleton and Veronica Gonzalez edd. [5]

     She hovers over the something somethinging and awkwardly lowers her bulk.

   • 2005, Floyd Skloot, A World of Light [6]

     “Oh how we somethinged on the hmmm hmm we were wed. Dear, was I ever on the stage?”

Noun

something (plural somethings)

1. An object whose nature is yet to be defined.
2. An object whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g., from words of a song. Also used to refer to an object earlier indefinitely referred to as 'something' (pronoun sense).
   • 1999, Nicholas Clapp, The Road to Ubar [7]

     What was the something the pilot saw, the something worth killing for?

   • 2004, Theron Q Dumont, The Master Mind [8]

     Moreover, in all of our experience with these sense impressions, we never lose sight of the fact that they are but incidental facts of our mental existence, and that there is a Something Within which is really the Subject of these sense reports—a Something to which these reports are presented, and which receives them.

   • 2004, Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives [9]

     She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass.