Today I opened a dictionary to find that in German there is an irgend-version of most question words (wie, was, wer, wohin, etc.) that basically means a non-specific thing that the question word refers to – like someone, something, somehow, etc.
However, two words have caught my attention, as they seem to fall out of the picture and, actually, appear completely redundant. These words are irgendjemand and irgendetwas. According to dictionary, these mean exactly the same thing as jemand and etwas without the prefix irgend.
Are irgendjemand and irgendetwas some obscure and/or obsolete words that are rarely used? Do they imply even more ambiguity than the “normal” jemand and etwas? Or are they just synonyms?
Also (if they‘re different), I’m curious whether there are any cases when one would rather use irgendjemand and irgendetwas than just jemand and etwas.
As I stated in the first paragraph, I understand what other irgend-words mean and when to use them, this question is only about irgendjemand and irgendetwas and how (and if) they are different from "normal" irgend and etwas.