anything

pron

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

   “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%.”

2. Expressing an indefinite comparison.

   “Perhaps it was this atmosphere of misplacedness and loneliness as much as anything which led her to speak to him one evening in early summer when the office had closed.”

noun

1. Someone or something of importance.

   “How long does it take to turn you actors into good anythings?”

   “So we tried not to talk about first or second anythings until our meeting with the rabbi.”

verb

1. (ambitransitive, colloquial)Used as a placeholder verb for any verb out of a set of related verbs.

   “He wasn't cooking, he wasn't sweeping, he wasn't anythinging!”

   “–I don't want to accompany him! –You never want to anything him!”

   “" No, no," said he, quickly, " I repudiate half compliments of all kinds. I will neither be half-uncled, half-respected, nor, in short, half-anythinged, by you. ' Out upon such half-faced fellowship !' I will either be something, or altogether nothing."”

   “Papa and mamma beg to be very kindly remembered to you" — I'm sure the two old savages wouldn't beg to be kindly anythinged, but it looks well that she should say so, doesn't it? But the end is the best.”

   ““She isn't dating him.” “Oh. What would you call it? I don’t know what you'd call it.” “She isn’t anythinging him. She just likes him, and he likes her back. I—I lied earlier.””

adv

1. (not-comparable)In any way, any extent or any degree.

   “That isn't anything like a car.”

   “She's not anything like as strong as me.”