From Middle English somþyng, some-thing, som thing, sum thinge, sum þinge, from Old English sum þing, equivalent to some + thing.

• enPR: sŭmʹthĭng, IPA: /ˈsʌm.θɪŋ/
  • (British, Australia, New Zealand) IPA: [ˈsɐm̥(p)θɪŋ]
  • (America) IPA: [ˈsʌm̥(p)θɪŋ], [ˈsʌn̪̥θɪŋ] (sometimes reduced to [ˈsʌ(m)ʔm̩] or [ˈsʌɾ̃ɪŋ], or even monosyllabically to [sʌ̃ː] or [sʌˑɪŋ])

1. An uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing.

   Synonyms: sth

   I must have forgotten to pack something, but I can't think what.

   I have something for you in my bag.

   I have a feeling something good is going to happen today.

   The answer to four down is P something T something Y.

   She looked thirty-something. (anything from thirty-one to thirty-nine years old)

2. (colloquial, of someone or something) A quality to a moderate degree.

   The performance was something of a disappointment.

   That child is something of a genius.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC ↗:

     Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.

3. (colloquial, of a person) A talent or quality that is difficult to specify.

   Synonyms: je ne sais quoi

   She has a certain something.

4. (colloquial, often with really or quite) Somebody who or something that is superlative or notable in some way.

   He's really something! I've never heard such a great voice.

   She's quite something. I can't believe she would do such a mean thing.

   Some marmosets are less than six inches tall. —Well, isn't that something?

• -something
• -somethingth
• thing
• nothing
• anything
• everything
• somebody
• someone
• somewhere

• French: quelque chose
• German: etwas
• Italian: qualcosa
• Portuguese: algo, alguma coisa
• Russian: что́-то
• Spanish: algo, alguna cosa

• German: klein

• French: quelque chose
• German: Etwas, etwas
• Portuguese: algo mais

• Portuguese: algo mais

something (not comparable)

1. Having a characteristic that the speaker cannot specify.

something (not comparable)

1. (degree) Somewhat; to a degree.

   The baby looks something like his father.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     Angelo. Yet giue leaue (my Lord,)
     That we may bring you something on the way

2. (colloquial, especially in certain set combinations) Used to adverbialise a following adjective

   I miss them something terrible. (I miss them terribly)

   • 1913, Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna‎, L.C. Page, →OCLC ↗:

     You can't thrash when you have rheumatic fever – though you want to something awful, Mrs. White says.

something (somethings, present participle somethinging; simple past and past participle somethinged)

1. Designates an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song.
   • 1890, William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes

     He didn’t apply for it for a long time, and then there was a hitch about it, and it was somethinged—vetoed, I believe she said.

   • 2003, George Angel, “Allegoady,” in Juncture, Lara Stapleton and Veronica Gonzalez edd.

     She hovers over the something somethinging and awkwardly lowers her bulk.

   • 2005, Floyd Skloot, A World of Light

     “Oh how we somethinged on the hmmm hmm we were wed. Dear, was I ever on the stage?”

something (plural somethings)

1. An object whose nature is yet to be defined.
2. An object whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g., from words of a song. Also used to refer to an object earlier indefinitely referred to as 'something' (pronoun sense).
   • 1999, Nicholas Clapp, The Road to Ubar

     What was the something the pilot saw, the something worth killing for?

   • 2004, Theron Q Dumont, The Master Mind

     Moreover, in all of our experience with these sense impressions, we never lose sight of the fact that they are but incidental facts of our mental existence, and that there is a Something Within which is really the Subject of these sense reports—a Something to which these reports are presented, and which receives them.

   • 2004, Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives

     She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass.