noun
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the state of being null
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a null or legally invalid act or instrument
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something null, ineffective, characterless, etc
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of nullity
From the Medieval Latin word nūllitās, dating back to 1560–70. See null, -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
By rendering the subpoena a nullity, McElroy left O’Connor nothing to enforce, making his earlier order toothless.
From Slate ● May 19, 2026
In the process of conversion, however, she’s reduced to a nullity with a grating personal manner.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
So what we're going to do is we're going to say, "That was a nullity, it never happened, we are nullifying her actions and . . ."
From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2023
A city that could imagine its own improbable existence into reality could just as easily relegate this now-inconvenient natural feature into a nullity or a comedian’s gag.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2022
The agreeable nullity of Leon’s life was a polished artifact, its ease deceptive, its limitations achieved by invisible hard work and the accidents of character, none of which she could hope to rival.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
They themselves tell you that they are nullities.
From Tancred Or, The New Crusade by Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield
Never forget," said he in an address to the Assembly, "that laws are mere nullities without the necessary force to sustain them.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol 1-98, 1850-1899 None by Various (magazine) Harper
Her style also possesses the needful lightness and grace, and she accordingly succeeds admirably in her sketches of high life, with all its elegant nullities and spiritless pomp.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 by Various
They are the necessary concomitants of law, without which laws are mere nullities.
From Joseph Smith the Prophet-Teacher A Discourse by B. H. Roberts
"If prescription can make mere nullities to become good and valid, the laity may be capable of all manner of ecclesiastical power, &c."
From The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 03 Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 1 by Jonathan Swift
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
