unthing

English

Etymology

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

Noun

unthing (plural unthings)

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

See also
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