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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."
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“Null.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/null. Accessed 10 Jun. 2026.
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