animate thing vs being

animate thing and being both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
animate thing	Yes	No	No	No
being	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, being is a hyponym of animate thing; that is, being is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than animate thing:

animate thing: a living (or once living) entity
being: a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently

Other hyponyms of animate thing include organism, life, biont, cell.

animate thing (noun)	being (noun)
a living (or once living) entity	a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently
	the state or fact of existing