void

American  

[void] / vɔɪd /

adjective

1. Law. having no legal force or effect; not legally binding or enforceable.

2. useless; ineffectual; vain.

3. devoid; destitute (usually followed byof ).

   a life void of meaning.

4. without contents; empty.

5. without an incumbent, as an office.

   Synonyms:

   unoccupied, vacant

6. Mathematics. (of a set) containing no elements; empty.

7. (in cards) having no cards in a suit.

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noun

1. an empty space; emptiness.

   He disappeared into the void.

   Synonyms:

   lack, absence, vacuum

2. something experienced as a loss or privation.

   His death left a great void in her life.

3. a gap or opening, as in a wall.

4. Typography. counter.

5. (in cards) lack of cards in a suit.

   a void in clubs.

verb (used with object)

1. to make ineffectual; invalidate; nullify.

   to void a check.

2. to empty; discharge; evacuate.

   to void excrement.

3. to clear or empty (often followed byof ).

   to void a chamber of occupants.

4. Archaic. to depart from; vacate.

verb (used without object)

1. to defecate or urinate.

void British  

/ vɔɪd /

adjective

1. without contents; empty

2. not legally binding

   null and void

3. (of an office, house, position, etc) without an incumbent; unoccupied

4. destitute or devoid

   void of resources

5. having no effect; useless

   all his efforts were rendered void

6. (of a card suit or player) having no cards in a particular suit

   his spades were void

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noun

1. an empty space or area

   the huge desert voids of Asia

2. a feeling or condition of loneliness or deprivation

   his divorce left him in a void

3. a lack of any cards in one suit

   to have a void in spades

4. Also called: counter.  the inside area of a character of type, such as the inside of an o

verb

1. to make ineffective or invalid

2. to empty (contents, etc) or make empty of contents

3. (also intr) to discharge the contents of (the bowels or urinary bladder)

4. archaic to vacate (a place, room, etc)

5. obsolete to expel

void Idioms  

1. see null and void.

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Related Words

See empty.

Other Word Forms

• nonvoid
  adjective
• prevoid
  verb (used with object)
• unvoid
  adjective
• unvoidness
  noun
• voider
  noun
• voidness
  noun

Etymology

Origin of void

First recorded in 1250–1300; (adjective) Middle English voide, from Anglo-French, Old French voide, voit, vuide, vuit ( French vide ), from unattested Vulgar Latin vocīta, vocita feminine of vocītus, vocitus unattested and dissimilated variant of Latin vacīvus, vocīvus, “empty”; see vacuum; (verb) Middle English voiden, from Anglo-French voider, Old French, from unattested Vulgar Latin vocitāre, derivative of unattested vocītus, vocitus; (noun) derivative of the adjective

Explanation

A void is empty space, nothingness, zero, zilch. A place that's void of all life forms has no sign of animals, plants, or people. You may recognize void from the Old Testament passage describing creation: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep." In other words, nothing was there: pure emptiness. When you void something or make it void, you make it legally invalid, and that kind of void often goes with null. You might tell Cinderella, "If you're not back by midnight, that arrangement with the pumpkin and the mice is null and void."

Example Sentences

Spirit’s permanent grounding on May 2 made it the highest-profile airline casualty in decades—and set off a dash as rival carriers and airports look to fill the void it left behind.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 17, 2026

Jamieson says the virality is "comparable" to its US counterpart, adding that the show is "filling a void" of live British comedy at weekends.

From BBC • May 17, 2026

Anthropic declared stock sales facilitated by unauthorized firms void, causing widespread panic among investors.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 15, 2026

If it holds, the terminations are void and the government cannot reimpose them.

From Slate • May 14, 2026

Yet at the same time, the Bible and other Semitic traditions were full of the ideas of the infinite and the void, ideas that the Muslims already embraced.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

Related Words

• abrogate
• annul
• dissolve
• invalidate
• rescind
• vacate