anyone
pronUS /ˈɛ.ni.wʌn/ · /ˈɛ.niˌwʌn/
Etymology From Middle English eny on, ony one. By surface analysis, any + one.
1
Any person; anybody.
- Almost anyone can change a light bulb.
- The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.1891, George Bernard Shaw, Quintessence of Ibsenism:
2 more examples
- “[…] Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm straight, but this time I had six thousand quid at stake. […] I laid 'em long odds because it wasn't in the nature of things that Wynbolt could beat all of them champs. Then—then he smashed one after another, until I got windy—nervous as you might say. […]”1935, George Goodchild, chapter 8, in Death on the Centre Court:
- It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
- Synonyms
- anybody