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

• voids
  plural

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)

• voids,
  present (3rd person singular)
• voided,
  past participle,  past
• voiding
  present participle

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)

• voids,
  present (3rd person singular)
• voided,
  past participle,  past
• voiding
  present participle

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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Synonym Usage

See empty.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• voids
  plural

Participles

• voiding
  present
• voided
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• void
  simple
• voids
  simple
• have voided
  perfect
• has voided
  perfect
• am voiding
  progressive
• are voiding
  progressive
• is voiding
  progressive
• have been voiding
  perfect progressive
• has been voiding
  perfect progressive

Past

• voided
  simple
• had voided
  perfect
• was voiding
  progressive
• were voiding
  progressive
• had been voiding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will void
  simple
• will have voided
  perfect
• will be voiding
  progressive
• will have been voiding
  perfect progressive

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

See Examples For:

void voids voided voiding

If true, the NBA should void his contract and ban him, and Uncle Dennis, from the NBA because what they have done is reprehensible.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2026

They want the Department of Finance to annul the tax roll of 960,000 properties and void the pied-à-terre tax warning letters that were already sent out.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

She sees the campus as filling a void left by decades of cuts to arts education while providing a place where residents can gather and learn.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026

Their trigger was a government decision in May to void a national medical-school entrance exam after evidence emerged that its questions had circulated in advance on messaging apps.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

In science Pascal investigated the vacuum—the nature of the void.

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

Lima Construction identified that the four window voids posed a risk to those working on the scaffolding platform.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026

Another artist who uses unusual displays for his work is Ben Cowan, who handcrafts and casts his surfaces, creating sculptural frames with voids reminiscent of elements from Gothic architecture.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026

He comforted terrified survivors and filled critical information voids by sending continual updates to friends and neighbors as firefighters fought the blaze.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026

And he said the focus on its store brands would “allow us to go faster and fill in voids our national partners don’t have visibility to.”

From MarketWatch ● Mar. 11, 2026

I let him fill all the voids in my life—family, friendship, love—and it hurts so much to know what I need to do now.

From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Ballmer also could be penalized and Leonard’s contract could be voided.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026

Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison operated two ports on either end of the canal before the Panama Supreme Court voided the contract in January.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026

Before the 1970s, courts were extremely skeptical of the uneven bargaining power and information between the government and defendant, and voided plea bargains, if they even had to consider them at all.

From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2026

A-level students in several countries, including the UK, have had their exam papers voided after it emerged they had been leaked online.

From BBC ● May 26, 2026

But the foul creatures hadn’t finished yet; holding their beautiful wings high, they squatted among the devastation and voided their bowels.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

The anti-doping investigations resulted in a four-year ban for Valieva and the voiding of her Olympic results—but, crucially, no punishments for anyone in her entourage.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 18, 2026

Tesla shareholders initially voted to give Musk the stock options in 2018, with a Delaware judge voiding the award in early 2024, citing inadequate shareholder disclosures.

From Barron's ● Dec. 20, 2025

In a move that has alarmed veterans, Brentwood School is asking an appeals court to toss out a judge’s order voiding its lease for the land where it maintains extensive athletic facilities.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2025

They discovered that both increase of bladder pressure and sphincter muscle bursting activity associated with bladder emptying both stopped when PMCESR1+ cell activity was blocked during an ongoing voiding even.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 3, 2024

The flower stalk is defined by darning the first row in a darker colour; for the rest, voiding is employed, but it is not easy to void in darning.

From Art in Needlework A Book about Embroidery by Buckle, Mary

Related Words

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