any thing

pronoun

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see any, thing.

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Meanings

pronoun
  1. archaicArchaic form of anything.

    I am not sensible of having done any thing wrong in walking over Mrs. Smith’s grounds, or in seeing her house.

    1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XIII, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume I, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 161
    2 more examples

    1600, translation attributed to Thomas Nashe, The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles by Tomaso Garzoni, London: Edward Blount, Discourse 6, pp. 32-33, The intemperature of the braine is the cause of al this (as phisitions affirme) which maketh all the officiall, and functiue parts full of heauines and indisposition, and so through this hebetude (to vse their terme) vnapt to keepe in minde any thing.

    The driver […] neither knew any thing, said any thing, or did any thing but watch a dozen equine ears, and keep six reins taut in his hands, and coax the off wheel[-]horse with the belly of his whip-lash every two minutes, invariably accompanying the stroke with a tremendous solitary cluck.

    1869 September, E. P. Willard, “A Night and a Day on the Sierra Nevada”, in The Western Monthly, volume II, number 9, Chicago, Ill.: Reed, Browne & Co., publishers, No. 18 Tribune Building, →OCLC, page 179, column 2
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see any, thing.

    All this may clarify what I mean by the other thing, by the distinction between object and thing, but such clarity comes, of course, at the expense of the local detail where any thing occurs.

    2015, Bill Brown, “Things—in Theory”, in Other Things, Chicago, Ill.; London: The University of Chicago Press, published 2019, →ISBN, page 23
Cite this entry
APA

any thing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/any%20thing

MLA

“any thing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/any%20thing. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “any thing,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/any%20thing.

Source: any thing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.