Other forms: things
A thing is any object you are not going to name exactly. Pass me that thing on the shelf; there is something sharp in the bottom of the bag; what is this little plastic thing for?
In the plural, things means your belongings — pack your things, leave your things by the door — or the general state of life: how are things? things are getting better. A thing can also be an event, an idea or a plain fact: the funny thing is, the last thing I want, one thing at a time. In recent informal English, "a thing" means something that genuinely exists or is popular right now: is that a thing? cold-water swimming is a thing now. To have a thing for someone is to fancy them; to have a thing about something is to feel strongly about it. And "the thing is" is how English speakers announce the real problem.
1nounthingAn object that is not being named exactly.~49%
“Hand me that thing with the red handle.”
2nounbelongingsBelongings; the possessions someone carries or owns (usually plural).~2%
“She threw her things into a bag and left.”
3noungeneralThe general state of a situation or of life (plural).~2%
“Things have been quiet at work since Christmas.”
4nounactionAn action, event, idea or fact.~45%
“The strange thing is that nobody heard the alarm.”
5nounreallySomething that really exists or is currently popular (informal).~2%
“Apparently office naps are a thing now.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 22 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense (3 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Old English þing did not mean an object at all: it meant an assembly, the meeting where a community settled its business. Icelandic still uses þing that way, for parliament. From the meeting the word slid to the matter being discussed at the meeting, and from there to anything whatsoever — the same slide Latin made from causa, "legal case".
Middle English
thing
English, today
thing
From Middle English thing. From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic þing, from Proto-Germanic þingą. Cognate with stq 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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA