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Glite Dictionary
one of those things

one of those things

20 4.6
An unlucky event you cannot always avoid
  • idiom
translation icon : una de esas cosas
  • Losing your job can be tough, but it's one of those things that happens to many people.
  • just one of those things
  • one of those things that happen
  • Again, it's one of those things

Grief is simply one of those things that you cannot outrun.

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Examples

  • It's just one of those things you know.

    Cruel Will (2013)

  • It's one of those things you got to do, you know?

  • But I knew that this was one of those things that could be fixed.

  • But this is one of those things that will go like that.

    Harry Brown (2009)

  • That was one of those things I would never do that same way again.

    Millennium After the Millennium (2019)

  • Their need was one of those things she had come to accept.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Climate change is one of those things.

    Academic text (2016)

  • I know as I'm sitting there that this is one of those things that comes from traveling alone.

    Blog text (19)

  • You know, it's, it's one of those things where it's tiring.

    Rich Roll

  • You're not gonna let this be one of those things, are you?

    Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Synonyms

misfortune
vsone of those things
75 3.7

A bad event that causes trouble

is the same unlucky event but also seen as unavoidable and normal
unavoidable
vsone of those things
45 3.8

You cannot stop or prevent it

is an unfortunate event often treated as part of normal life
inevitable
vsone of those things
1 5.3

An event that cannot be avoided

is viewed as an unfortunate occurrence people accept as normal
matter-of-course
vsone of those things
5.6

Happening in a normal, expected way

is the same accepted occurrence but also regarded as unfortunate

Antonyms

fortunate
20 2.0

Likely to bring a good result

Surface Forms

one of those things singular
one of those things plural

Morphology

one + of + those + thing

The phrase is compositionally analyzable as 'one (item) of those things' so a learner who knows the words will understand it refers to an example of a certain kind. However, the conventionalized pragmatic sense—resignation that something is unavoidable or just part of life—is a discourse-level meaning not fully predictable from the parts without exposure.

Etymology

One of those things comes from the picture of a pile of small problems: you point to one of those things and shrug when something unlucky happens. That's why it means 'an unavoidable or ordinary event' that just happens in life.