nothing
noth·ing/ˈnʌθɪŋ/pronoun, noun, adjective, interjection
nothing is spelled N-O-T-H-I-N-G, 2 syllables: noth·ing. The wrong spelling people search most is nothign: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 1,429 of all searches for the word. Nothing is a pronoun meaning “Not any thing; no thing”.
How many letters and syllables are in nothing?
| Letters | 7: N-O-T-H-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: noth·ing |
| In writing | 355 times per million words; the 256th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, nothign, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell nothing?
Nothing is spelled N-O-T-H-I-N-G. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 1,537 of the searches for nothing in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is nothing?
Nothing appears 355 times per million words in written English, the 256th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce nothing?
- US /ˈnʌθɪŋ/
- /ˈnʌtɪŋ/
- /ˈnʌʔn̩/
Nothing has 2 syllables, split noth·ing in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-nothing.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with nothing
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: no thing (one word or two).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of nothing
- nothings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does nothing mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
pronoun
- 1
Not any thing; no thing.
Don't just say nothing. Tell me what's going on.
- 2
An absence of anything, including empty space, brightness, darkness, matter, or a vacuum.
noun
- 1
Something trifling, or of no consequence or importance.
- What happened to your face? - It's nothing.
- 2
A trivial remark especially in the term sweet nothings.
- 3
A nobody (insignificant person).
adjective
- 1
Completely unimportant.
Dallas scored on what had seemed until then like a nothing play.
- 2
Lacking effort or commitment.
The cricketer played a nothing shot.
interjection
- 1
Never mind; it's not important; forget what I said.
adverb
- 1
archaicNot at all; in no way.
Nothing too much out of the ordinary.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate nothing?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of nothing: nothin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Nothing in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | rien, nulle chose |
| German | nichts , gar nichts |
| Portuguese | nada, nenhuma coisa |
| Spanish | nada, ninguna cosa, naca la piriznaca, naranjas, ni flores |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does nothing come from?
From Middle English nothyng, noon thing, non thing, na þing, nan thing, nan þing, from Old English nāþing, nān þing (“nothing”, literally “not any thing”), equivalent to no + thing. Compare Old English nāwiht (“nothing”, literally “no thing”), Swedish ingenting (“nothing”, literally “not any thing, no thing”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).