nothing noun [From no, a. + thing.]

1. Not anything; no thing (in the widest sense of the word thing); – opposed to anything and something.

Yet had his aspect nothing of severe. Dryden.

2. Nonexistence; nonentity; absence of being; nihility; nothingness. Shak.

3. A thing of no account, value, or note; something irrelevant and impertinent; something of comparative unimportance; utter insignificance; a trifle.

Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought. Is. xli. 24.

’T is nothing, says the fool; but, says the friend,
This nothing, sir, will bring you to your end. Dryden.

4. (Arith.) A cipher; naught. Nothing but

only; no more than. Chaucer.

To make nothing of

(a) To make no difficulty of; to consider as trifling or important.

“We are industrious to preserve our bodies from slavery, but we make nothing of suffering our souls to be slaves to our lusts.” Ray.

(b) Not to understand; as, I could make nothing of what he said.

Noth′ing adverb In no degree; not at all; in no wise.

Adam, with such counsel nothing swayed. Milton.

The influence of reason in producing our passions is nothing near so extensive as is commonly believed. Burke.

Nothing off (Naut.)

an order to the steersman to keep the vessel close to the wind.