Other forms: objects, objected, objecting
An object is a thing you can see and pick up. The stuff on a desk — a mug, a stapler, a bunch of keys — is a pile of objects.
Object is also the point of something: the object of the exercise, the object of the game. In grammar it is the word a verb acts on, so in she kicked the ball, ball is the object. Programmers borrowed it for a bundle of named values with the code that works on them. And with the stress moved to the second syllable, obJECT is a verb: to object is to say out loud that you disagree, and you object TO something. Same six letters, two words — OBject the thing, obJECT the protest.
1nounitemA thing you can see and touch; a material item.~77%
“The drawer was full of small metal objects he could not name.”
2nounaimThe aim or purpose of an action.~2%
“The object of the game is to get rid of your cards first.”
3verbdisagreeTo say that you disagree with something or oppose it. Stressed on the second syllable.~2%
“I object to being asked to work every Sunday.”
4nounreceivesA person or thing that receives a feeling or action.~2%
“He became an object of pity in the office, which was worse than being disliked.”
5noungrammarIn grammar, the word or phrase naming the person or thing that a verb acts on.~2%
“In the sentence she opened the window, the object is window.”
6nounobjectIn programming, a bundle of named values together with the code that works on them.~15%
“Each user is stored as an object with a name, an email address and a list of orders.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 12 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
object is a physical thing.
Object came through Old French from Medieval Latin obiectum, which literally meant thrown against: ob, against, plus iacio, to throw. The Latin was built to translate a Greek word, antikeimenon, for the thing that lies opposite you. So an object is whatever is thrown in front of you and stops your eye — and when you object, you throw something in the path of the argument.
Medieval Latin
obiectum
Old French
object
English, today
object
Built from
Borrowed from Old French object, from Medieval Latin obiectum. From Old French object, from Medieval Latin obiectum (“object”) literally “thrown against”, from obiectus, perfect passive participle of obiciō (“to throw against”), from ob iaciō (“to throw”), as a calque of Ancient Greek ἀντικείμενον. a doublet of objectum and objet.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA