null

[nuhl]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR null ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

without value, effect, consequence, or significance.

being or amounting to nothing; nil; lacking; nonexistent.

Mathematics. (of a set)

empty.
of measure zero.

being or amounting to zero.

noun

Electronics. a point of minimum signal reception, as on a radio direction finder or other electronic meter.

verb (used with object)

to cancel; make null.

Idioms

null and void, without legal force or effect; not valid: This contract is null and void.

Origin of null

1555–65; < Latin nūllus, equivalent to n(e) not + ūllus any

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for null

worthless, inoperative, unreal, invalid, ineffective, void, negative, barren, bad, nothing, imaginary, absent, nonexistent, powerless, unavailing, useless, vain, inefficacious, characterless, unsanctioned

Examples from the Web for null

Contemporary Examples of null

Because all of the Rescued Film Project images are scanned to digital, the necessity of a darkroom is null.
These Photographs Would Die Without Him
Dale Eisinger
July 31, 2014
Journals aren't interested in null results or "yup, we replicated that other study"; they want new studies with new findings.
Searching for Fraud
Megan McArdle
October 9, 2012
Blacks are saying that the old contract with America is null and void.
America's New Racial Reality
James Carroll
September 18, 2009

Historical Examples of null

As this marriage was null and void, there was no Marchioness of Morella.
Fair Margaret
H. Rider Haggard
It all came to nothing: as poetry it never began to be more than null.
From a Cornish Window
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
If one of these three conditions is wanting, the ballot is null.
Napoleon the Little
Victor Hugo
If they do not proclaim him, my abdication must be null, and not made.
Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II
Fleury de Chaboulon.
The changes of the Protectorate were treated as null and void.
History of the English People
John Richard Green

British Dictionary definitions for null

null

adjective

without legal force; invalid; (esp in the phrase null and void)

without value or consequence; useless

lacking distinction; characterlessa null expression

nonexistent; amounting to nothing

maths

quantitatively zero
relating to zero
(of a set) having no members
(of a sequence) having zero as a limit

physics involving measurement in which an instrument has a zero reading, as with a Wheatstone bridge

Word Origin for null

C16: from Latin nullus none, from ne not + ullus any

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for null

adj.

"void of legal force," 1560s, from Middle French nul, from Latin nullus "not any, none," from ne- "not, no" (see un-) + illus "any," diminutive of unus "one" (see one).

null in Science

null

[nŭl]

Of or relating to a set having no members or to zero magnitude.