58 Examples of Things

John Spacey, June 21, 2022

Things are tangible, non-living entities that aren't too big. Tangible refers to something with a physical presence such that you can touch it. Things are also non-living such that any form of life including people, animals, insects and microorganisms aren't things. The third criteria is that things aren't too large. For example, you wouldn't typically call a planet or a bridge a thing. The following are common examples of things.

Bags	Bathtubs
Blankets	Boats
Books	Boxes
Cameras	Chairs
Clocks	Clothing
Combs	Computers
Cosmetics	Desks
Diamonds	Flashlights
Furniture	Garbage
Gems	Glasses
Globes	Gold
Hangers	Hats
Home Appliances	Lightbulbs
Napkins	Paper
Pencils	Pens
Phones	Robots
Rocks	Rulers
Satellites	Shoes
Sinks	Skis
Soap	Sporting Goods
Staplers	Surfboards
Tables	Tea
Tools	Toothbrushes
Towels	Umbrellas
Watches	Wood

You can refer to life forms as a "living thing" but not as a "thing."

Things have a solid form. As such, gases such as air or liquids such as water aren't things.

The word things is very commonly used to describe non-specific intangible entities such as the atmosphere in a room. For example, "things were getting weird."

Things is often used as a catch-all word. For example, if you listed "things that are fast" you might include people and animals in the list. This is not suggesting that people are things but is just informal language whereby things is used as synonym of "entity."

People, Places and Things

It is common for dated English materials to ask students to sort nouns, including animals into the categories "people, places and things" whereby animals are "things." This relates to 19th century English whereby it was previously more common to refer to animals such as a dog as a thing. This is increasingly rare in modern English such that this categorization has been updated to "people, places, things and animals."

Counterexamples

The following are specifically not things.

Animals	Gases
Insects	Intangible entities such as an emotion
Large entities such as a planet	Liquids
Microorganisms	Plants

Overview: Things
Type	Language
Definition (1)	Tangible, solid, non-living entities that aren't too big.
Definition (2)	An inanimate physical object as distinct from a living being.
Definition (3)	Non-specific intangible entities such as the atmosphere in a room.
Exceptions	Confusingly, the word thing is commonly used as informal synonym of "entity." In this context, anything can be a thing.
Related Concepts	Life » Intangible »