Shadow vs Something - What's the difference?
shadow | something |
A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1
, passage=The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.}}
Relative darkness, especially as caused by the interruption of light; gloom, obscurity.
* Denham
* Spenser
(obsolete) A reflected image, as in a mirror or in water.
That which looms as though a shadow.
*
A small degree; a shade.
* Bible, James i. 17
An imperfect and faint representation.
* Bible, Hebrews x. 1
* Milton
One who secretly or furtively follows another.
* Milton
A type of lettering form of word processors that makes a cubic effect.
An influence, especially a pervasive or a negative one.
*
A spirit; a ghost; a shade.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete, Latinism) An uninvited guest accompanying one who was invited.
To block light or radio transmission.
(espionage) To secretly or discreetly track or follow another, to keep under surveillance.
To accompany a professional during the working day, so as to learn about an occupation one intends to take up.
(programming) To make an identifier, usually a variable, inaccessible by declaring another of the same name within the scope of the first.
(computing) To apply the shadowing process to (the contents of ROM).
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.
*
*
*
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]
As nouns the difference between shadow and something
is that shadow is a dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object while something is an object whose nature is yet to be defined.As verbs the difference between shadow and something
is that shadow is to block light or radio transmission while something is applied to an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, eg from words of a song.As a pronoun something is
an uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing.As an adjective something is
having a characteristic that the speaker cannot specify.As an adverb something is
(degree) somewhat; to a degree.shadow
English
(wikipedia shadow)Noun
(en noun)- Night's sable shadows from the ocean rise.
- In secret shadow from the sunny ray, / On a sweet bed of lilies softly laid.
- (Shakespeare)
- Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow' cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose ' shadow falls over us all.
- no variableness, neither shadow of turning
- He came back from war the shadow of a man.
- the law having a shadow of good things to come
- [types] and shadows of that destined seed
- Sin and her shadow Death
- Hence, horrible shadow !
- (Nares)
Usage notes
* A person (or object) is said to "cast", "have", or "throw" a shadow if that shadow is caused by the person (either literally, by eclipsing a light source, or figuratively). The shadow may then be described as the shadow "cast" or "thrown" by the person, or as the shadow "of" the person, or simply as the person's shadow.Derived terms
* backshadowing * foreshadowing * rain shadow * shadow acting * shadow boxing * shadow cabinet * shadow government * shadow minister * shadow play * shadow price * sideshadowing * unshadowVerb
(en verb)- Looks like that cloud's going to shadow us.
Derived terms
* overshadowsomething
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.
