thing

英文词源

thing

thing: [OE] The ancestral meaning of thing is ‘time’: it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *thingam, which was related to Gothic theihs ‘time’, and may come ultimately from the Indo- European base *ten- ‘stretch’ (source of English tend, tense, etc). In Germanic it evolved semantically via ‘appointed time’ to ‘judicial or legislative assembly’.

This was the meaning it originally had in English, and it survives in other Germanic languages (the Icelandic parliament is known as the Althing, literally ‘general assembly’). In English, however, it moved on through ‘subject for discussion at such an assembly’ to ‘subject in general, affair, matter’ and finally ‘entity, object’. (The ancient meaning ‘assembly’ is preserved in fossilized form in English husting, etymologically a ‘house assembly’).
=> husting

thing (n.)

Old English þing "meeting, assembly, council, discussion," later "entity, being, matter" (subject of deliberation in an assembly), also "act, deed, event, material object, body, being, creature," from Proto-Germanic *thingam "assembly" (cognates: Old Frisian thing "assembly, council, suit, matter, thing," Middle Dutch dinc "court-day, suit, plea, concern, affair, thing," Dutch ding "thing," Old High German ding "public assembly for judgment and business, lawsuit," German Ding "affair, matter, thing," Old Norse þing "public assembly"). The Germanic word is perhaps literally "appointed time," from a PIE *tenk- (1), from root *ten- "stretch," perhaps on notion of "stretch of time for a meeting or assembly."

The sense "meeting, assembly" did not survive Old English. For sense evolution, compare French chose, Spanish cosa "thing," from Latin causa "judicial process, lawsuit, case;" Latin res "affair, thing," also "case at law, cause." Old sense is preserved in second element of hustings and in Icelandic Althing, the nation's general assembly.

Of persons, often pityingly, from late 13c. Used colloquially since c. 1600 to indicate things the speaker can't name at the moment, often with various meaningless suffixes (see thingamajig). Things "personal possessions" is from c. 1300. The thing "what's stylish or fashionable" is recorded from 1762. Phrase do your thing "follow your particular predilection," though associated with hippie-speak of 1960s is attested from 1841.