1. thing, matter
2. incident, occurrence, event, something serious, trouble, crisis
3. circumstances, situation, state of affairs
4. work, business, affair
5. after an inflectable word, creates a noun phrase indicating something the speaker does not ...
1. continuously, the whole time, all the way, throughout
2. much (more), (by) far, far and away, a lot, a great deal
3. far (away), long (ago, before, after)
4. straight, directly