very thing, the

1. Exactly what is needed or wanted, as in That hat's the very thing to complete the costume. This idiom, which uses very to denote exact identity, was first recorded in 1768.

Example Sentences

“I insisted to everyone that it was unscrupulous to distort the truth in reports but those who rose through the ranks were those who did that very thing,” the voice over says in Russian.

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It reveals a powerful sense of a community feeling forgotten, with emotions stirred by the very thing - the barge - designed to reassure voters that asylum seekers are not living in taxpayer-funded luxury.

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He had that very thing the FBI was trying to bring down.

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To love "Emily in Paris" would be to love the very thing the show tells us to hate.

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Although “Kate” borrows elements of Berlant’s biography, it’s fiction through and through, which means that it withholds the very thing the lobby teases: knowledge of Berlant herself.

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Related Words

• actually 
• categorically 
• definitely 
• doubtless 
• exactly 
• positively 
• precisely 
• really 
• surely 
• truly 
• unconditionally 
• unquestionably