Word.ws English Dictionary

thing

/θiŋ/ [θiŋ ~ θɪ̝ŋ]/θɪŋ/

thing noun: that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept. Also the alternative form of ting.

Noun (1)

thing (plural things)

  1. That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
    • Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:1
    • 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...2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48
  2. A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
    Synonyms:
    item, stuff, yoke
  3. An individual object or distinct entity.
  4. Whatever can be owned.
  5. Corporeal object.
  6. (in plural) Possessions or equipment; stuff; gear.
    • Hold on, let me just grab my things.
  7. (dated) The latest fad or fashion.
    • 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.1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45
    • After a slow start it became the thing to do; 'everyone went to see Pbi-Pbi, no one talked of anything but Pbi-Pbi[…]'2002, Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929, Univ of California Press, →ISBN
  8. (informal) A custom or practice.
    • Cheek kissing is a French thing; you get used to it after a while.
  9. (informal) A genuine concept, entity or phenomenon; something that actually exists (often contrary to expectation or belief).
    • Q: Bacon pie? Is that a thing? A: Yes, I checked into it, and it's a thing. Some people are even connoisseurs about it.
    • Now I don't know how many of those male flight attendants are male lesbians -- you know... (Laughter) Well, it's a thing. I mean, there's a -- it's a -- there's a feminist professor down in Tampa who's discovered a male lesbian1993 November 24, The Rush Limbaugh Show (radio), Rush Limbaugh (actor)
  10. (informal) A unit or container, usually containing consumable goods.
    • Could you get me a thing of apple juice at the store?
    • I just ate a whole thing of jelly beans.
  11. (informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.
    • The car looks cheap, but the thing is, I have doubts about its safety.
    • That's the thing: we don't know where he is.
  12. (euphemistic, slang) A penis.
    • “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”1962 [1959], William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, New York: Grove Press, page 150
    Synonyms:
    penis
Show 9 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (euphemistic, slang) A vulva or vagina.
    • ‘They reckon she lets her dogs lick her thing.’1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 65
  2. A living being or creature.
    • you poor thing
    • sweet young thing
  3. Used after a noun to refer dismissively to the situation surrounding the noun's referent.
    • Oh yeah, I'm supposed to promote that vision thing.
    • Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing. (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)1914, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man [playscript]
  4. (informal) That which is favoured; personal preference.
    • it's not really my thing
    • Tool talk [is] not my thing.2002, Joss Whedon et al, "Never Leave Me", Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV episode)
    Synonyms:
    predilection
  5. (informal) One's typical routine, habits, or manner.
    • let me do my thing; I'm here doing my thing
    • But I'm just a guy from Missoula, Montana, doing my thing, going down the road like everybody else.2006, David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish, Tarcher 2006, "Darkness", p. 91
  6. (historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
    • In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]1974, Jón Jóhannesson, translated by Haraldur Bessason, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, page 46
    • 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.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
  7. (informal) A romantic relationship.
    • I can screw you in front of everyone. I don't care, we have a thing going on, you know. I love you,” she said.2020, David Gomadza, EVELINA: The Alpha
  8. (informal) A romantic couple.
    • Are John and Jennifer a thing again? I thought they broke up.
  9. (Multicultural-London-English) Girl; attractive woman.
    • Look at the nyash on that thing!

Verb

thing (third-person singular simple present things, present participle thinging, simple past and past participle thinged)

  1. (rare) To express as a thing; to reify.

Noun (2) capitalized: Thing

Thing (plural Things)

  1. (historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
    • But when the earl held a Thing, then Thorkell spoke on behalf of the freemen, told the need of the men, and bade the earl spare his people.1894, George W. Dasent, transl., The Orkneyingers Saga: Icelandic Sagas, volume 3
    • The supreme political unit of the tribe was the assembly of its free male warriors. This assembly, called the "Thing", served as the court of highest instance for dealing with individuals who had broken fundamental elements of the tribal pact, an occasion to meet and to reinforce ties among...1988, Patrick J. Geary, Chapter II, "The Barbarian World in the Sixth Century", 'Germanic Culture', Before France and Germany: the creation and transformation of the Merovingian world, page 55
  2. (informal) Nickname or appellative for numerous "things", including fictional characters.
  3. (US, informal, slang) Nickname for the Volkswagen 181.

Also used as

thing is also the alternative form of ting.

thing meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

thing in Hindi

that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept
वस्तु vastu, चीज़ cīz

thing in Tamil

that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept
பொருள் poruḷ

thing in Marathi

that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept
गोष्ट goṣṭa, वस्तू vastū
problem, dilemma, or complicating factor
गोष्ट goṣṭa

thing in Urdu

that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept
چِیز cīz
More languagesFewer languages
thing in Bengali
জিনিস jiniś, বস্তু bostu, চিজ cij
thing in Telugu
వస్తువు vastuvu
thing in Malayalam
വസ്തു vastu, സാധനം sādhanaṁ, പൊരുൾ poruḷ, കാര്യം kāryaṁ
thing in Kannada
ವಸ್ತು vastu
thing in Punjabi
ਵਸਤੂ vastū
thing in Gujarati
વસ્તુ vastu
thing in Sanskrit
वस्तु vastu
thing in Sinhala
දෙය deya
thing in Assamese
বস্তু bostu
thing in Nepali
वस्तु vastu
thing in Pashto
شى šay, څيز ciz
thing in Tagalog
bagay
thing in Arabic
شَيْء šayʔ, حاجة ḥāga, شي šay, ستون stūn
thing in Malay
benda, barang
thing in Indonesian
benda, barang, makhluk, hal
thing in Persian
چِیز čīz, شَیْء šay', چیز čiz, شِیْء šey'
thing in Thai
สิ่ง sìng, ทรัพย์ sáp
thing in Vietnamese
vật, điều, thứ
thing in Myanmar
အရာ a.ra, ဟာ ha

Examples of thing in a sentence

  • she's a funny old thing, but her heart's in the right place
  • I met a pretty blond thing at the bar
  • Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you […], "share the things you love with the world" and so on.2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48:
  • Clémence would say that his style was normcore before normcore became a thing.2014, Harper Lin, Croissant Murder:
  • Conservative philosophy, in other words, is, as we say now, a thing and deserves a serious listen.2019, Adam Gopnik, A Thousand Small Sanities, Riverrun, published 2019, page 88:
  • And he invited us all in there and then he kicked the girls out a little bit later and brought me in a couple things of alcohol.1998 March 24, Geraldo (television):

All 40 example sentences with thing

Synonyms of thing

All synonyms of thing

Forms of thing

Noun
pluralthings
alternative formting
pluralThings
alternative pronunciation-spelling usually (slang)thang
alternative pronunciation-spelling (informal)thin'
alternative form (archaic)thinge
alternative form (obsolete)thynge
Verb
third-person singular presentthings
present participlethinging
past participlethinged
pastthinged

Plural of thing: things

Origin of 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.

See thing.

Words formed from thing

Phrases with thing

86 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with thing

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about thing

What does thing mean?
Thing means that which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
What is thing in Hindi?
Thing in Hindi is वस्तु (vastu), चीज़ (cīz). See Thing meaning in Hindi.
How do you use thing in a sentence?
she's a funny old thing, but her heart's in the right place
What part of speech is thing?
Thing can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce thing?
Thing is pronounced /θɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of thing?
The plural of thing is things.

Words near thing in the dictionary

  1. Thind
  2. Thinds
  3. thine
  4. thineself
  5. thineselves
  6. thing
  7. thing in action
  8. thing in itself
  9. thing in possession
  10. thing is
  11. thing of nothing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thing (page history and authors); Thing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-thing.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-thing.wav.

Cite this entry: “thing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.