TKG English Learner's Dictionary

anyone

anyonepronoun

American /ˈɛn.iˌwʌn/ British /ˈen.iˌwʌn/ The strongest stress is on the first part: EN-ee-wun.
very commondefining vocabulary

  1. any personany person at all

    Anyone is used in questions (did anyone see that?), negative sentences (I didn't see anyone), and conditions (if anyone calls), and in a positive statement to mean it does not matter who: anyone can enter.

    Collocations

    phrase anyone else, hardly anyone, if anyone

    Synonyms anybody

    Compare someone

    For translators (sense 1)

    Meaning across languages Anyone 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 Anyone usually shifts in from someone when a sentence becomes a question or a negative (Someone called becomes Did anyone call?), but someone is kept when the speaker has a particular person in mind.

Word family

Usage

Anyone and anybody mean the same thing and can normally replace each other; anyone is more common in writing. Any one (written as two words) points to a single one chosen from a group, whether a person, a thing, or an option: any one of these books, any one of the three days, a different expression from anyone.

Common mistakes

I didn't see someone at the door. I didn't see anyone at the door.
After a negative, anyone is the normal choice when no particular person is meant.