anybody, n. or pron.
(ˈɛnɪbɒdɪ, -bədɪ)
1. comb. of any and body n. in the sense of person (as in nobody, somebody): Any person, any one. It has all the varieties of use noted under any a. 1, as in ‘Does anybody know? I do not see anybody. Anybody can do that.’ Formerly written as two words: any body; but, when so written now, body has its ordinary sense: ‘the velocity with which any body moves.’
| 1490 Caxton Eneydos xxii. 81 Without to notyfye them to eny body lyuynge. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. i. iv. 4 If he doe..finde any body in the house. 1813 Jane Austen Pride & Prej. vi. 194 Any body who would hear her. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. 13 Impossible to make an arrangement that would please every body, and difficult to make an arrangement that would please any body. 1876 J. Parker Paraclete ii. 385 Anybody can attach himself to a mob. |
2. With qualitative force; sometimes made a regular substantive with pl. a. In interrogative or hypothetical expressions, laudatory: A person of some rank or worth, ‘a somebody’ as opposed to ‘a nobody.’ b. In affirmative expressions, depreciatory: A person of any sort, an ordinary person, as opposed to ‘a somebody.’
| 1826 Disraeli Viv. Grey ii. xv. 78 Everybody was there who is anybody. 1858 Bright Sp. 21 Dec. (1876) 306 Two or three anybodies. 1866 Trollope Last Chron. Barset v. 34 Everybody, who was anybody, knew that Mr. Walker was convinced of the man's guilt. 1961 Harper's Bazaar Dec. 47/2 Everybody who is anybody in the business world will be seeking the latest status symbol. |
3. In colloq. phrs., as anybody's game, anybody's match, anybody's race, designating a contest in which the competitors are so evenly matched that either side (any competitor) could win; also fig.; anybody's guess, an unpredictable matter, a question to which no one knows the answer.
| 1840 Spirit of Times 4 Jan. 523/2 It was anybody's race yet! 1853 F. Gale Public Sch. Matches 58 Sixty-nine runs and six wickets down; anybody's match, by jingo! 1865 J. Pycroft Cricketana vii. 152 Last year's match had been left unfinished, just in that interesting state in which it is called ‘anybody's game’. 1898 Forum Jan. 576 In Greater New York, it was what is called ‘anybody's race’, till close upon the day of election. 1938 Time 21 Nov. 70/2 What this type of angry, incoherent prose will prove is anybody's guess. 1955 E. Bowen World of Love x. 179 Anybody's game, she had thought... Though which of them, dead man and living girl, had been the player, and which the played-with? 1958 Times 27 Sept. 9/4 How many less serious accidents there were, is, therefore, anybody's guess. |