Thing
Thing was a term that described an unknown entity, an inanimate object, or any physical object that was not considered to be a person.

In 2151, Commander  described a  on the planet Archer IV as a "scorpion thing." ()

In 2254, Doctor Phil Boyce said to Captain Christopher Pike that a man would tell things to a bartender that he would never tell to a Doctor. ()

In 2266, an android with Doctor 's consciousness assured Christine Chapel that he did not and could not love Andrea, another android, saying "A thing is not a woman." ()

In 2267, a spore infected Elias Sandoval described his settlement on the planet Omicron Ceti III as having a simple philosophy where people returned to a less complicated life with few mechanical things, no vehicles, and no weapons. ()

In the 2270s, James T. Kirk requested that Leonard McCoy to be assigned to the  again. When McCoy protested, Kirk began to explain, "Bones, there's a 'thing' out there..", to which McCoy retorted, "Why is any object we don't understand always called a 'thing'?" ()

In 2364, the Ligonians were noted for their respect for patience which could be seen in the precise, ritualistic way they did things. ()

That same year, Captain Jean-Luc Picard claimed that a lot had changed in the past three-hundred years, that people were no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. ()

Later that year, despite the holographic Minuet being a computer-generated image, the things she said and thought were among her aspects which seemed so real to William T. Riker. ()

Slang
Philosophy