"unthing" meaning in English

See unthing in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: unthings [plural]
Etymology: Calque of German Unding, equivalent to un- + thing. Compare also West Frisian ûnding, Dutch onding. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|de|Unding}} Calque of German Unding, {{pre|en|un-|thing|id1=negative}} un- + thing, {{cog|fy|ûnding}} West Frisian ûnding, {{cog|nl|onding}} Dutch onding Head templates: {{en-noun}} unthing (plural unthings)
  1. Something irrelevant or inconsequential; a non-issue; an absurdity. Synonyms: nothingburger Related terms: thingly, nonperson, unperson, nonplace, unplace, nonthing
    Sense id: en-unthing-en-noun-b8DDJs6U Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English terms prefixed with un- (negative)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for unthing meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "Unding"
      },
      "expansion": "Calque of German Unding",
      "name": "calque"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "un-",
        "3": "thing",
        "id1": "negative"
      },
      "expansion": "un- + thing",
      "name": "pre"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fy",
        "2": "ûnding"
      },
      "expansion": "West Frisian ûnding",
      "name": "cog"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "nl",
        "2": "onding"
      },
      "expansion": "Dutch onding",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Calque of German Unding, equivalent to un- + thing. Compare also West Frisian ûnding, Dutch onding.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "unthings",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "unthing (plural unthings)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with un- (negative)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1964, Testimony of members of Congress, interested individuals, and organizations",
          "text": "They made a thing of an unthing and put it on paper.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, U.C. Mandal, J. Rawat, Public Administration: Principles and Practice, page 272",
          "text": "Whether or not PPB is an unthing in the federal bureaucracy, the budgetary concepts that are represented by it and its conceptual predecessors are still viable within OMB: control, management, and planning.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Anne Carolyn Klein, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness",
          "text": "This hidden heart essence, so secret,\nAn unthing untouched by the eterne […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Catherine Wilson, Leibniz's Metaphysics, page 218",
          "text": "It does not follow from either the metaphor or the possibility of defining this space mathematically that it must be Leibniz's dreaded unthing “unthing” – a something that is nothing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something irrelevant or inconsequential; a non-issue; an absurdity."
      ],
      "id": "en-unthing-en-noun-b8DDJs6U",
      "links": [
        [
          "irrelevant",
          "irrelevant"
        ],
        [
          "inconsequential",
          "inconsequential"
        ],
        [
          "non-issue",
          "non-issue"
        ],
        [
          "absurdity",
          "absurdity"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "thingly"
        },
        {
          "word": "nonperson"
        },
        {
          "word": "unperson"
        },
        {
          "word": "nonplace"
        },
        {
          "word": "unplace"
        },
        {
          "word": "nonthing"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "nothingburger"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unthing"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "Unding"
      },
      "expansion": "Calque of German Unding",
      "name": "calque"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "un-",
        "3": "thing",
        "id1": "negative"
      },
      "expansion": "un- + thing",
      "name": "pre"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fy",
        "2": "ûnding"
      },
      "expansion": "West Frisian ûnding",
      "name": "cog"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "nl",
        "2": "onding"
      },
      "expansion": "Dutch onding",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Calque of German Unding, equivalent to un- + thing. Compare also West Frisian ûnding, Dutch onding.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "unthings",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "unthing (plural unthings)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "thingly"
    },
    {
      "word": "nonperson"
    },
    {
      "word": "unperson"
    },
    {
      "word": "nonplace"
    },
    {
      "word": "unplace"
    },
    {
      "word": "nonthing"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms calqued from German",
        "English terms derived from German",
        "English terms prefixed with un- (negative)",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1964, Testimony of members of Congress, interested individuals, and organizations",
          "text": "They made a thing of an unthing and put it on paper.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, U.C. Mandal, J. Rawat, Public Administration: Principles and Practice, page 272",
          "text": "Whether or not PPB is an unthing in the federal bureaucracy, the budgetary concepts that are represented by it and its conceptual predecessors are still viable within OMB: control, management, and planning.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Anne Carolyn Klein, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness",
          "text": "This hidden heart essence, so secret,\nAn unthing untouched by the eterne […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Catherine Wilson, Leibniz's Metaphysics, page 218",
          "text": "It does not follow from either the metaphor or the possibility of defining this space mathematically that it must be Leibniz's dreaded unthing “unthing” – a something that is nothing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something irrelevant or inconsequential; a non-issue; an absurdity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "irrelevant",
          "irrelevant"
        ],
        [
          "inconsequential",
          "inconsequential"
        ],
        [
          "non-issue",
          "non-issue"
        ],
        [
          "absurdity",
          "absurdity"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "nothingburger"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unthing"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.