What is the difference between anything and something?
anything | something |
In any way, any extent or any degree.
Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatever; thing of any kind; something or other; .
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*:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer languageunderstood 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.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist)
, title=
*{{quote-book, year=1916, author=Edward S. Moffat, title=Go Forth and Find, page=81-82
, passage=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.}}
Someone or something of importance.
*
* {{quote-news, year=2007, date=May 6, author=Cindy Chupack, title=An Ancient Coda to My 21st-Century Divorce, work=New York Times
, passage=So we tried not to talk about first or second anythings until our meeting with the rabbi. }}
An uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= (colloquial, of someone or something) A quality to a moderate degree.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5
, passage=Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.}}
(colloquial, of a person) A talent or quality that is difficult to specify.
(colloquial, often with really) Somebody or something who is superlative in some way.
Having a characteristic that the speaker cannot specify.
(degree) Somewhat; to a degree.
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)
, chapter=5, title= (degree, colloquial) To a high degree.
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Applied to an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song.
* 1890, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0140439234&id=IOZeJi7U4eEC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&sig=LW2P-uKmoZabe70ZKnIHIMQLXlw]
* 2003, George Angel, “Allegoady,” in Juncture, Lara Stapleton and Veronica Gonzalez edd. [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN1887128913&id=qB-D32yV1VAC&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&sig=9AYyYLA-MQqTgAbptreoe3VyOzQ]
* 2005, Floyd Skloot, A World of Light [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0803243189&id=TEgRGe6FiTkC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&sig=zEj4BPQ0eEFkj6LdOI8eRJlZrzE]
An object whose nature is yet to be defined.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=52, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= 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 [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0395957869&id=3ikdzDKkQ04C&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&sig=UNimtwdgeC_w_wqGXfa4LsCDik8]
* 2004, Theron Q Dumont, The Master Mind [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0766185435&id=-n_jW7BVfawC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&sig=ou-CrIyWbKyZQ0s3q0uaJTiHdsI]
* 2004, Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0060738197&id=rKeKLf7LeXAC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&sig=uAeyLuj-HYk1dLAme_rokCWQITc]
Something is a related term of anything.
As adverbs the difference between anything and something
is that anything is in any way, any extent or any degree while something is somewhat; to a degree.As pronouns the difference between anything and something
is that anything is any object, act, state, event, or fact whatever; thing of any kind; something or other; aught while something is an uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing.As nouns the difference between anything and something
is that anything is someone or something of importance while something is an object whose nature is yet to be defined.As an adjective something is
having a characteristic that the speaker cannot specify.As a verb something is
applied to an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song.anything
English
Adverb
(-)- That isn't anything like a car.
Pronoun
(English Pronouns)No hiding place, passage=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%.}}
Derived terms
() * anything else * anything goes * anythingarian * as anything * if anything * not much of anything * not that there's anything wrong with thatNoun
(en noun)citation
References
*something
English
Pronoun
(English Pronouns)Our banks are out of control, passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.}}
Synonyms
* (unspecified thing) sth (especially in dictionaries)Derived terms
* somethingthAdjective
(-)Adverb
(-)A Cuckoo in the Nest, passage=The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. There is something humiliating about it.}}
Derived terms
(to a high degree) * something awful * something bad * something fierce * something good * something terribleStatistics
*Verb
(en verb)- 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.
- She hovers over the something somethinging and awkwardly lowers her bulk.
- “Oh how we somethinged on the hmmm hmm we were wed. Dear, was I ever on the stage?”
Noun
(en noun)The new masters and commanders, passage=From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much.
- What was the something' the pilot saw, the ' something worth killing for?
- 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.
- She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass.