thing
/θɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.72 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An individual object or distinct entity.
noun
Possessions or equipment; stuff; gear.
Example Sentences
- "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us..."
- "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."
- "Hold on, let me just grab my things."
- "To go to bed late, to rise late, to breakfast late, to dine late, and to visit late, is to be “quite the thing,” or in good English, which you may understand better than the first phrase, to be in the fashion."
- "After a slow start it became the thing to do; 'everyone went to see Pbi-Pbi, no one talked of anything but Pbi-Pbi[…]'"
- "Cheek kissing is a French thing; you get used to it after a while."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tenk-? Proto-Indo-European *tenkóm Proto-Germanic *þingą Proto-West Germanic *þing Old English þing Middle English thing English thing From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing, from Proto-Germanic *þingą. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Ding (“thing”), West Frisian ting, ding (“thing”), Dutch ding (“thing”), German Low German Ding (“thing”), German Ding (“thing”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ting (“thing”), Faroese ting (“parliament, assembly”), Icelandic þing (“congress, assembly”), Scots hing (“thing”). The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin rēs, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Danish ting, Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: thing, þing, *þing, *þingą
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /θɪŋ/
- British English: /θɪŋ/