different between thing vs fellow

English

Alternative forms

• thang (slang, pronunciation spelling, usually used to denote a known fad or popular activity)
• thin' (informal, pronunciation spelling)
• thinge (archaic)
• thynge (obsolete)
• ting (Caribbean creoles, MLE)

Etymology

From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-Germanic *þing?; compare West Frisian ding, Low German Ding, Dutch ding, German Ding, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian ting. The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin r?s, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.

Pronunciation

• enPR: th?ng, IPA^(key): /???/
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

thing (plural things)

1. That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
   • 1611 — King James Version of the Bible, Luke 1:1

     Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
2. A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
3. An individual object or distinct entity.
4. (informal) A genuine concept, entity or phenomenon; something that actually exists (often contrary to expectation or belief). [from 20th c.]
   • 2014, Marianna Papastephanou, Torill Strand, Anne Pirrie, Philosophy as a Lived Experience

     Frequent statements of the kind “'Race' is not a thing”, “'races,' put simply, do not exist”, “'race' (as each essay subtly shows) simply does not exist” aim to discredit Todorov's claim that a relapse to an ontology of race is at place […]

   • 2019, Adam Gopnik, A Thousand Small Sanities, Riverrun 2019, p. 88:

     Conservative philosophy, in other words, is, as we say now, a thing and deserves a serious listen.

5. (law)
   1. Whatever can be owned.
   2. Corporeal object.
6. (somewhat dated, with the) The latest fad or fashion.
   • 1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45:

     To go to bed late, to rise late, to breakfast late, to dine late, and to visit late, is to be “quite the thing,” or in good English, which you may understand better than the first phrase, to be in the fashion.

   • 2002, Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929, Univ of California Press (?ISBN)

     After a slow start it became the thing to do; 'everyone went to see Pbi-Pbi, no one talked of anything but Pbi-Pbi […] '

7. (in the plural) Clothes, possessions or equipment.

8. (informal) A unit or container, usually containing edible goods.
   • 2011, Juliette Fay, Deep Down True: A Novel, Penguin (?ISBN)

     I came home and ate a whole thing of ice cream.

9. (informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.

10. (slang) A penis.
    • 1959, William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:

      “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”

11. A living being or creature.

12. That which matters; the crux.

13. Used after a noun to refer dismissively to the situation surrounding the noun's referent.
    • 1914, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man [playscript]:

      Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing. (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)

14. (informal) That which is favoured; personal preference. (Used in possessive constructions.)
15. (chiefly historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
    • 1974, Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:

      In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]

    • 1974, Jakob Benediktsson, Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis, in Saga Íslands, quoted in 1988 by Jesse L. Byock in Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 85:

      The goðar seem both to have received payment of thing-fararkaup from those who stayed home and at the same time compensated those who went to the thing, and it cannot be seen whether they had any profit from these transactions.

    • 1988, Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 59:

      All Icelandic things were skap-thing, meaning that they were governed by established procedure and met at regular legally designated intevals at predetermined meeting places.

16. (informal) A romantic relationship.

Synonyms

• (referent that can be used to refer to any entity): item, stuff (uncountable equivalent), yoke (Ireland)
• (penis): see Thesaurus:penis
• (personal preference): see Thesaurus:predilection

Derived terms

Related terms

• diminutives: thingy / thingie, thingo [Aus]

Translations

Further reading

• thing in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• thing in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Verb

thing (third-person singular simple present things, present participle thinging, simple past and past participle thinged)

1. (rare) To express as a thing; to reify.

Anagrams

• Night, night

Khumi Chin

Etymology

From Proto-Kuki-Chin *thi?, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *si?. Cognates include Mizo thing and Zou sing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t???/

Noun

thing

1. firewood

References

• K. E. Herr (2011) The phonological interpretation of minor syllables, applied to Lemi Chin?^[1], Payap University, page 44

Middle English

Alternative forms

• thinge, ðhing

Etymology

From Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing.

Noun

thing (plural thinges)

1. thing

Descendants

• English: thing
• Scots: thing, ting, hing
• Yola: dhing

References

• “thing, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Mizo

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *si?. Akin to Khumi Chin thing.

Noun

thing

1. tree
2. wood
3. firewood

References

• Matisoff, James A., Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman, University of California Press.

Old Dutch

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *þing?.

Noun

thing n

1. thing, object
2. case, matter, issue

Inflection

Descendants

• Middle Dutch: dinc
  • Dutch: ding
    • Afrikaans: ding
  • Limburgish: dink, ding

Further reading

• “think”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

Old High German

Alternative forms

• ding, dink

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *þing?

Noun

thing n

1. thing, object
2. matter, case

Declension

Descendants

• Middle High German: ding
  • Cimbrian: ding
  • German: Ding
  • Luxembourgish: Déngen
  • Pennsylvania German: Ding

Old Saxon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *þing. Compare Old Dutch thing, Old Frisian thing, Old English þing, Old High German ding, Old Norse þing.

Noun

thing n

1. thing, object
2. matter, case

Declension

Descendants

• Middle Low German: dink
  • German Low German: Ding
  • Plautdietsch: Dinkj

English

Etymology

From Middle English felowe, felawe, felage, from Old Norse félagi (“fellow, companion, associate, shareholder, colleague”), from félag (“partnership”, literally “a laying together of property”), from the Germanic bases of two words represented in English by fee and law. Cognate with Scots falow, fallow, follow (“associate, comrade, companion”), Danish fælle (“companion”), Norwegian felle (“companion”), Faroese felagi (“member, partner”), Icelandic félagi (“comrade, mate”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f?l??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f?lo?/
• (informal, nonstandard) IPA^(key): /?f?l?/
• Rhymes: -?l??
• Hyphenation: fel?low

Noun

fellow (plural fellows)

1. (obsolete) A colleague or partner.
2. (archaic) A companion; a comrade.
   • 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume IV

     That enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude.

   • Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.

3. A man without good breeding or worth; an ignoble or mean man.
4. An equal in power, rank, character, etc.
5. One of a pair, or of two things used together or suited to each other; a mate.

   • When they be but heifers of one year, […] they are let goe to the fellow and breed.
6. (attributive) A person with common characteristics, being of the same kind, or in the same group.
   • 1888, James Francis Hogan, The Irish in Australia

     writing a history of my fellow-countrymen in Australasia
7. (colloquial) A male person; a man.
9. (rare) A person; an individual, male or female.

   • She seemed to be a good sort of fellow.

10. (Britain slang, obsolete) Synonym of schoolmate: a student at the same school.
    • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 37:

      Adrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang. ‘I say, you fellows, here's a rum go. Old Biffo was jolly odd this morning. He gave me a lot of pi-jaw about slacking and then invited me to tea. No rotting! He did really.’

11. A rank or title in the professional world, usually given as "Fellow".
    1. In the English universities, a scholar who is appointed to a foundation called a fellowship, which gives a title to certain perquisites and privileges.
    2. In an American college or university, a member of the corporation which manages its business interests; also, a graduate appointed to a fellowship, who receives the income of the foundation.
    3. A member of a literary or scientific society

       a Fellow of the Royal Society

    4. The most senior rank or title one can achieve on a technical career in certain companies (though some Fellows also hold business titles such as Vice President or Chief Technology Officer). This is typically found in large corporations in research and development-intensive industries (IBM or Sun Microsystems in information technology, and Boston Scientific in Medical Devices for example). They appoint a small number of senior scientists and engineers as Fellows.
    5. In the US and Canada, a physician who is undergoing a supervised, sub-specialty medical training (fellowship) after completing a specialty training program (residency).
12. (Aboriginal English) Used as a general intensifier
    • 1991, Jimmy Chi, Bran Nue Dae, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 137:

      This fella song all about the Aboriginal people, coloured people, black people longa Australia.

Usage notes

In North America, fellow is less likely to be used for a man in general in comparison to other words that have the same purpose. Nevertheless, it is still used by some. In addition, it has a good bit of use as an academic or medical title or membership.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:associate
• See also Thesaurus:man

Translations

Derived terms

Verb

fellow (third-person singular simple present fellows, present participle fellowing, simple past and past participle fellowed)

1. To suit with; to pair with; to match.

References

• “fellow”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Anagrams

• elf owl