the very thing

the very thing

Exactly what is most ideal, desired, or useful in a particular moment or situation. I'm telling you, when you're hungover, a big basket of French fries is the very thing! I have the very thing to wear with a dress that color.
See also: thing, very

very thing

Fig. the exact thing that is required. The vacuum cleaner is the very thing for cleaning the stairs. I have the very thing to remove that stain.
See also: thing, very

very thing, the

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.
See also: very
References in periodicals archive ?
I remember in the early 1960s when my Franciscan novice master told us, "You're communists now." Although he was right, it was sort of unbelievable that the very thing that we had been raised to think was horrible, was, in fact, what we were.
What's so good about Catholicism?
The things that the Christian church can proclaim through the witness of the Bible are the very things that this world does not know how to take very seriously.
The death of a paradigm
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