What is the difference between stuff and thing?
stuff | thing | Synonyms |
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.
That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
, volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
An individual object or distinct entity.
(informal) Something that is normal or generally recognised.
(legal) Whatever can be owned.
The latest fad or fashion.
(in the plural) Clothes, possessions or equipment.
(informal) A unit or container, usually containing edible goods.
(informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.
(slang) A penis.
* 1959 , , (Naked Lunch) , 50th anniversary edition (2009),
A living being or creature.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= That which matters; the crux.
* 1914 , Eugene Gladstone O'Neill,
(chiefly, historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
* 1974 , Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga , translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:
* 1974', Jakob Benediktsson, ''Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis'', in ''Saga Íslands'', quoted in '''1988 by Jesse L. Byock in ''Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power , page 85:
* 1988 , Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power , page 59:
Thing is a synonym of stuff.
In informal terms the difference between stuff and thing
is that stuff is Used as placeholder, usually for material of unknown type or name.thing is a problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.As nouns the difference between stuff and thing
is that stuff is miscellaneous items; things; (with possessive) personal effects while thing is that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.As verbs the difference between stuff and thing
is that stuff is to fill by crowding something into; to cram with something; to load to excess while thing is to express as a thing; to reify.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.
Synonyms
* (to sexually penetrate) fuck, root, screwDerived terms
* * stuff the ballot box * stuffyDerived terms
* made of sterner stuff * stuff one's face * stuff up * stuff-up * stuff you * stuffed up * get stuffedAnagrams
* * English placeholder termsthing
English
Noun
(en noun)The tao of tech, passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you […], "share the things you love with the world" and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.}}
p. 126:
- “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing .”
Revenge of the nerds, passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}
The Movie Man][playscript:
- Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing . (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)
- In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]
- The goðar'' seem both to have received payment of ''thing-fararkaup from those who stayed home and at the same time compensated those who went to the thing , and it cannot be seen whether they had any profit from these transactions.
- All Icelandic things were skap-thing , meaning that they were governed by established procedure and met at regular legally designated intevals at predetermined meeting places.
