Pronoun

1. an unspecified object

   I must have forgotten to pack something, but I can't think of what.

2. an event that breaks up a period of calm

   Isn't something meant to happen?

3. someone or something that has a quality to a moderate degree

   The performance was something of a disappointment.

4. a talent that is hard to pin down

   You've got something.

5. somebody or something who is in some way

   You're really something!

Related terms

• -something
• -somethingth

• thing
• nothing
• anything

• everything
• somebody

• someone
• somewhere

Adverb

1. somewhat; to a degree

   the baby looks something like his father.

Verb

1. Applied to an action whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g. from words of a song.
   • 1890, William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0140439234&id=IOZeJi7U4eEC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&sig=LW2P-uKmoZabe70ZKnIHIMQLXlw

     He didn’t apply for it for a long time, and then there was a hitch about it, and it was somethinged—vetoed, I believe she said.

   • 2003, George Angel, “Allegoady,” in Juncture, Lara Stapleton and Veronica Gonzalez edd. http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN1887128913&id=qB-D32yV1VAC&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&sig=9AYyYLA-MQqTgAbptreoe3VyOzQ

     She hovers over the something somethinging and awkwardly lowers her bulk.

   • 2005, Floyd Skloot, A World of Light http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0803243189&id=TEgRGe6FiTkC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&sig=zEj4BPQ0eEFkj6LdOI8eRJlZrzE

     “Oh how we somethinged on the hmmm hmm we were wed. Dear, was I ever on the stage?”

Noun

1. an important person; a somebody

   He looks a something behind that big desk.

2. An object whose nature is yet to be defined.
3. An object whose name is forgotten by, unknown or unimportant to the user, e.g., from words of a song. Also used to refer to an object earlier indefinitely referred to as 'something' (pronoun sense).
   • 1999, Nicholas Clapp, The Road to Ubar http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0395957869&id=3ikdzDKkQ04C&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&sig=UNimtwdgeC_w_wqGXfa4LsCDik8

     What was the something the pilot saw, the something worth killing for?

   • 2004, Theron Q Dumont, The Master Mind http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0766185435&id=-n_jW7BVfawC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&sig=ou-CrIyWbKyZQ0s3q0uaJTiHdsI

     Moreover, in all of our experience with these sense impressions, we never lose sight of the fact that they are but incidental facts of our mental existence, and that there is a Something Within which is really the Subject of these sense reports—a Something to which these reports are presented, and which receives them.

   • 2004, Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0060738197&id=rKeKLf7LeXAC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&sig=uAeyLuj-HYk1dLAme_rokCWQITc

     She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass.