Word of the Day

: July 25, 2023

null

adjective NULL

What It Means

Null is a technical term. In law it is commonly used in the phrase "null and void" to describe something that has no legal or binding force. Null also has several zero-related meanings, including "amounting to nothing," "having no value," "having no elements," "having zero as a limit," and "of, being, or relating to zero."

// After careful review, the contract was declared null and void.

// A null vote is a rejection of all the ballot's candidates.

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null in Context

"While negative and null results can often be overlooked—by authors and publishers alike—their publication is equally as important as positive outcomes and can help fill in critical gaps in the scientific record." — PLOS.org, 6 Apr. 2020

Did You Know?

Let’s be honest: null is kind of a nothing word. That’s not a judgment—it was literally borrowed into English from the Anglo-French word nul, meaning "not any." That word, in turn, traces to the Latin word nullus, from ne-, meaning "not," and ullus, meaning "any." Null often pops up in legal and scientific contexts; it was originally used in Scottish law and still carries the meaning "having no legal or binding force," especially in the phrase "null and void." In mathematics, it is sometimes used to mean "containing nothing"; for example, the set of all whole numbers that are divisible by zero is the "null set" (that is, there are no numbers that fit that description). Null is occasionally seen in non-technical contexts with the meaning "lacking meaning or value," as in "if no one reads it, the book's content is null."