Dictionary

unthing en · NOUN

Etymology

Calque of German Unding, equivalent to un- + thing. Compare also West Frisian ûnding, Dutch onding.

Meanings

1. Something irrelevant or inconsequential; a non-issue; an absurdity.
   • 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. 2015, Catherine Wilson, Leibniz's Metaphysics, page 218:
   • 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. 1998, U.C. Mandal, J. Rawat, Public Administration: Principles and Practice, page 272:
   • This hidden heart essence, so secret, An unthing untouched by the eterne […] 2006, Anne Carolyn Klein, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness:
   • They made a thing of an unthing and put it on paper. 1964, Testimony of members of Congress, interested individuals, and organizations:

Forms

Relateds

nonthing · unplace · unperson · nonplace · thingly · nonperson

Synonyms

nothingburger