Skip to main content
PlainSpell

something

some·thing[ˈsʌm(p)θɪŋ]pronoun, adjective, adverb, verb, noun

something is spelled S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G, 2 syllables: some·thing. The wrong spelling people search most is somthing: about 200 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 38 of all searches for the word. Something is a pronoun meaning “An uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing”.

How many letters and syllables are in something?

Letters9: S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G
Syllables2: some·thing
In writing646 times per million words; the 152nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched7; the most searched, somthing, about 200 Bing searches a month (all of them)

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 something?

Something is spelled S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G. 7 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 23 of the searches for something in either form.

somethingthe right spelling7,370 searches a month
somthinga missing e200 searches a month
somethiga missing n40 searches a month
soemthingm and e swapped30 searches a month
somehtingt and h swapped20 searches a month
somethignn and g swapped20 searches a month
somehinga missing t10 searches a month
sonethingn in place of m10 searches a month

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 something?

Something appears 646 times per million words in written English, the 152nd 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 something?

  • /ˈsʌm.θɪŋ/
  • UK [ˈsɐm(p)θɪŋ]
  • US [ˈsʌm(p)θɪŋ]

Something has 2 syllables, split some·thing in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-something.wav, En-us-something.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with something

Also written: summing.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of something

  • sumthing
  • somethang
  • sumfin
  • sumfin'
  • sumn
  • sumpin
  • sumting
  • sumthang
  • sumfink
  • sth
  • sth.
  • sthg
  • smtg
  • smth
  • smtn
  • somethings present, singular, he/she/it, plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does something mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

pronoun

  1. 1

    An uncertain or unspecified thing; one thing.

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

  2. 2

    colloquialA quality to a moderate degree.

    The performance was something of a disappointment.

  3. 3

    colloquialA talent or quality that is difficult to specify.

    She has a certain something.

  4. 4

    colloquialSomebody who or something that is superlative or notable in some way.

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

adjective

  1. 1

    Having a characteristic that the speaker cannot specify.

adverb

  1. 1

    Somewhat; to a degree.

    The baby looks something like his father.

  2. 2

    colloquialUsed to adverbialise a following adjective

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

verb

  1. 1

    colloquialDesignates an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song.

noun

  1. 1

    An object whose nature is yet to be defined.

  2. 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).

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

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate something?

Wiktionary records 8 abbreviations of something: s.t., smt, smtg, smth, smthng, sth, sth., sthg.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Something in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchquelque chose (unspecified object)
Germanetwas (unspecified object), klein (a small quantity), Etwas (talent that is hard to pin down)
Portuguesealgo, alguma coisa (unspecified object), algo mais (talent that is hard to pin down)
Spanishalgo, alguna cosa (unspecified object), basurita (Translations)

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 something come from?

From Middle English somþyng, some-thing, som thing, sum thinge, sum þinge, from Old English sum þing (literally “some thing”), equivalent to some + thing. Compare Old English āwiht (“something”, literally “some thing, any thing”), Swedish någonting (“something”, literally “some thing, any thing”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after something