Definition of "anything" []

• Any object, occurrence, or matter whatever. (pronoun)
• To any degree or extent; at all: They aren't anything like last year's team. (adverb)
• Something or someone of importance: "You had to be something to start with, and Jeremy never was anything” ( Anne Tyler). (noun)
• Anything but By no means; not at all: I was anything but happy about going. (idiom)
• Anything goes Anything is permissible or likely to be tolerated. (idiom)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Even considering a single book, or the making of a pencil, or anything *anything* in our lives: consider everything lying behind it - does anyone seriously believe that this is an outcome of external forces and lumps that just happen to come together in something that is layered, absolutely slathered, in meaning?"
• "And that ‘unusualness’ could be anything: beauty, ugliness, deformity, eccentricity…..anything."
• "I use the backside of a ladle when straining anything with a sieve and it works wonders with everything, gravy, custard, raspberries..anything at all."