LIVING THING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does living thing mean? 

• LIVING THING (noun)
  The noun LIVING THING has 1 sense:

1. a living (or once living) entity

  Familiarity information: LIVING THING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LIVING THING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A living (or once living) entity

Classified under:

Nouns with no superordinates

Synonyms:

animate thing; living thing

Hypernyms ("living thing" is a kind of...):

unit; whole (an assemblage of parts that is regarded as a single entity)

Domain member category:

viability ((of living things) capable of normal growth and development)

immature; young ((used of living things especially persons) in an early period of life or development or growth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "living thing"):

being; organism (a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently)

life (living things collectively)

biont (a discrete unit of living matter)

cell ((biology) the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms; they may exist as independent units of life (as in monads) or may form colonies or tissues as in higher plants and animals)

 Context examples 

There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

A living thing, such as an animal, a plant, a bacterium, or a fungus.

(Organism, NCI Dictionary)

I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

In the misty, silvery night I could see no sign of any living thing.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He must be away, free, on his own legs, touching no living thing.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I remember his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his head, and my watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white sheath.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

"Are we to have nothing to-night?" said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)