Something vs Stuff - What's the difference?
something | stuff |
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]
Miscellaneous items; things; (with possessive) personal effects.
:
*
*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.
*Sir (c.1569-1626)
*:The workman on his stuff' his skill doth show, / And yet the ' stuff gives not the man his skill.
A material for making clothing; any woven textile, but especially a woollen fabric.
*1992 , Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety , Harper Perennial 2007, p.147:
*:She was going out to buy some lengths of good woollen stuff for Louise's winter dresses.
Abstract substance or character.
*c.1599 , (William Shakespeare),
*:When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff
*c.1610 , (William Shakespeare), (The Tempest) ,
*:We are such stuff / As dreams are made on
(lb)
:
*{{quote-book, year=1935, author=
, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=3
, passage=It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Substitution for trivial details.
:
(lb) Narcotic drugs, especially heroin.
*1947 , William Burroughs, letter, 11 March:
*:For some idiotic reason the bureaucrats are more opposed to tea than to stuff .
Furniture; goods; domestic vessels or utensils.
*Sir (c.1564-1627)
*:He took away locks, and gave away the king's stuff .
(lb) A medicine or mixture; a potion.
:(Shakespeare)
(lb) Refuse or worthless matter; hence, also, foolish or irrational language; nonsense; trash.
*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
*:Anger would indite / Such woeful stuff as I or Shadwell write.
(lb) A melted mass of turpentine, tallow, etc., with which the masts, sides, and bottom of a ship are smeared for lubrication.
:
Paper stock ground ready for use. When partly ground, it is called half stuff .
:(Knight)
To fill by crowding something into; to cram with something; to load to excess.
* Dryden
* 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)
To fill a space with (something) in a compressed manner.
* Francis Bacon
(used in the passive) To sate.
(transitive, British, Australia, New Zealand) To be broken. (rfex)
To sexually penetrate. (rfex)
To be cut off in a race by having one's projected and committed racing line (trajectory) disturbed by an abrupt manoeuvre by a competitor.
To preserve a dead bird or animal by filling its skin.
To obstruct, as any of the organs; to affect with some obstruction in the organs of sense or respiration.
* Shakespeare
To form or fashion by packing with the necessary material.
* Jonathan Swift
(dated) To crowd with facts; to cram the mind of; sometimes, to crowd or fill with false or idle tales or fancies.
As verbs the difference between something and stuff
is that something is applied to an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song while stuff is to fill by crowding something into; to cram with something; to load to excess.As nouns the difference between something and stuff
is that something is an object whose nature is yet to be defined while stuff is miscellaneous items; things; (with possessive) personal effects.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 somewhat; to a degree.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.
stuff
English
(wikipedia stuff)Noun
(en-noun)George Goodchild
Yesterday’s fuel, passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).}}
Usage notes
* The textile sense is increasingly specialized and sounds dated in everyday contexts.Verb
(en verb)- She stuffed the turkey for Thanksgiving using her secret stuffing recipe.
- Lest the gods, for sin, / Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin.
- The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.
- He stuffed his clothes into the closet and shut the door.
- Put roses into a glass with a narrow mouth, stuffing them close together and they retain smell and colour.
- I’m stuffed after having eaten all that turkey, mashed potatoes and delicious stuffing.
- I got stuffed by that guy on the supermoto going into that turn, almost causing us to crash.
- I'm stuffed , cousin; I cannot smell.
- An Eastern king put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal.
