TKG English Learner's Dictionary

anybody

anybodypronoun

American /ˈɛn.iˌbɑd.i/ British /ˈen.iˌbɒd.i/ The strongest stress is on the first part, with lighter stress on bod: EN-ee-bah-dee.
very commondefining vocabulary

  1. any personany person at all

    Anybody is used mainly in questions, negative sentences, and conditions: is anybody home? It is also used in an ordinary positive statement when it means it does not matter who: anybody can learn to cook.

    Collocations

    phrase anybody else, hardly anybody

    Synonyms anyone

    Compare somebody; nobody

Word family

Usage

Anybody and anyone mean the same thing and can normally be used in place of each other; anybody is slightly more conversational.

Common mistakes

I didn't see somebody. I didn't see anybody.
After a negative, anybody is used, not somebody.

For translators

Meaning across languages Anybody covers both 'no particular person' in questions and negatives, and 'it doesn't matter who' in positive statements; some languages use different words for these two ideas.
Grammar trap Anybody usually shifts in from somebody when a sentence becomes a question or a negative (Somebody called becomes Did anybody call?), but somebody is kept in a question when the speaker has a particular person in mind: Did somebody call while I was out?