Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • pronoun No thing; not anything.
  • pronoun No part; no portion.
  • pronoun One of no consequence, significance, or interest.
  • noun Something that has no existence.
  • noun Something that has no quantitative value; zero.
  • noun One that has no substance or importance; a nonentity.
  • adjective Insignificant or worthless.
  • adverb In no way or degree; not at all.
  • idiom (for nothing) Free of charge.
  • idiom (for nothing) To no avail.
  • idiom (for nothing) For no reason.
  • idiom (in nothing flat) In very little time; very quickly.
  • idiom (nothing doing) Certainly not.
  • idiom (nothing for it) Nothing else to be done; no alternative.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In no degree; not at all; in no way; not.
  • noun No thing; not anything; not something; something that is not anything.
  • noun A non-existent something, spoken of positively, so that the literal meaning is absurd.
  • noun Not something. In this sense the word is more distinctly no thing; and the sentence containing nothing merely contradicts a corresponding sentence containing something in place of nothing.
  • noun A cipher; naught.
  • noun A thing of no consequence, consideration, or importance; a trifle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb In no degree; not at all; in no wise.
  • adverb (Naut.) an order to the steersman to keep the vessel close to the wind.
  • noun Not anything; no thing (in the widest sense of the word thing); -- opposed to anything and something.
  • noun Nonexistence; nonentity; absence of being; nihility; nothingness.
  • noun A thing of no account, value, or note; something irrelevant and impertinent; something of comparative unimportance; utter insignificance; a trifle.
  • noun (Arith.) A cipher; naught.
  • noun only; no more than.
  • noun Not to understand.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • pronoun Not any thing; no thing.
  • pronoun An absence of anything, including empty space, brightness, darkness, matter, or a vacuum.
  • pronoun slang Anything
  • noun Something trifling, or of no consequence or importance
  • noun A trivial remark (especially in the term sweet nothings)
  • noun A nobody (insignificant person)
  • adverb archaic Not at all; in no way.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a quantity of no importance
  • adverb in no respect; to no degree

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English nāthing : , no; see no + thing, thing; see thing.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

no +‎ thing

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Examples

  • But nothing, absolutely *nothing* about Crowe's character throughout the movie convinced me that he was the person who would, at the very last minute, turn on a dime, shoot down his own gang and then throw himself in jail out of some weird sense of nobility.

    3:10 to Yuma Rogers 2008

  • However, upon reading further I discovered Joe ¨don´t know nothing about nothing¨ Lelyveld will return.

    Eschaton 2003

  • Their music makes me feel so good that I did exercise to it, and nothing, *nothing* makes me want to do exercise.

    12th January '03 2003

  • However, upon reading further I discovered Joe ¨don´t know nothing about nothing¨ Lelyveld will return.

    Archive 2003-06-01 2003

  • He had a job to do and nothing, _nothing, would keep him from doing it to the best of his ability.

    Sweet Anger Brown, Sandra, 1948- 1985

  • "Cuthbert is nothing to me -- _nothing_ -- compared with you, Wyvis."

    A True Friend A Novel Adeline Sergeant

  • Mr. Ruskin bade men "go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning, _rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing_;" and Mr. Hamerton was literally obeying him when he exiled himself for five years in a hut on an island in a bleak Scotch lake to learn faithfully to portray the shores of that single lake.

    Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 Various

  • In fine, The Gentry are very Rich, live of all Men the most careless and contented Lives, keeping the Poor as Drudges and Slaves for them; and as it is said of the Tyrant _Polycrates_, _Have nothing to trouble them, but that they are troubled with nothing_.

    The School of Recreation (1684 edition) Or, The Gentlemans Tutor, to those Most Ingenious Exercises of Hunting, Racing, Hawking, Riding, Cock-fighting, Fowling, Fishing Robert Howlett

  • But until that day I will have nothing to do with you, _nothing_.

    Leonie of the Jungle Joan Conquest

  • It informs us in all the duties of life, piety to our parents, faith to our friends, charity to the miserable, judgment in counsel; it gives us _peace_, by _fearing_ nothing, and _riches_, by _coveting nothing_.

    Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life

Comments

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  • The app is called "Nothing".

    November 28, 2010

  • I'm already getting nothing done. Will this app improve my productivity?

    November 28, 2010

  • I like to see your reactions here, people here, to my observation that it does not seem the word nothing is clear enough when everything that exists is something.

    Have you not seen how nothing is being compromised by science writers to the effect that it is no longer nothing but only the psychology of nothing, for it is now more and more something instead of the literal nothing, with some very highly acclaimed science writers.

    May 25, 2012

  • not-hing(e) and/or no-thing and/or noth-ing?

    May 25, 2012

  • rhymes with orange

    April 18, 2017

  • Ha!

    April 18, 2017

  • Not hinging upon!

    April 19, 2017