Any thing or anything?
any thing is a pronoun meaning “the words any and thing, each in its own sense”; anything is a pronoun meaning “Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatsoever; a thing of any kind…”. any thing is written as two words and anything as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between any thing and anything?
| any thing | anything | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | pronoun | pronoun, noun, verb, adverb |
| Meaning | Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see any, thing | Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatsoever; a thing of any kind; something or other Expressing an indefinite comparison Someone or something of importance |
| Example | none recorded | I would not do it for anything |
| Forms | none | anythings, anythinging, anythinged |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈɛn.ɪ.θɪŋ/ /ˈɛn.i.θɪŋ/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 355 times per million words |
Sources: any thing and anything in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of any thing and anything
any thing
- 1
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see any, thing
anything
- 1
Any object, act, state, event, or fact whatsoever; a thing of any kind; something or other
I would not do it for anything
- 2
Someone or something of importance
- 3
colloquialUsed 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!
- 4
In any way, any extent or any degree
That isn't anything like a car
- 5
Expressing an indefinite comparison
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, any thing or anything?
any thing is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; anything 355 times per million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search any thing vs anything?
“any thing vs anything” is searched about 140 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“anything vs any thing”, “any thing or anything”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.