anything

Definition

Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatsoever; a thing of any kind; something or other.

Etymology

From Middle English anything, enything, onything, from Late Old English aniþing, from earlier ǣniġ þing (literally “any thing”), equivalent to any + thing.

Example Sentences

• "I would not do it for anything."
• "Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language […] his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there."
• "In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%."