Did You Know?
English borrowed "null" from the Anglo-French "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." In math, 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). But "null" also has some more general uses. We often use it with the meaning "lacking meaning or value" (as in "by the time I heard it, the news was null").
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.