Annulment

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈnʌl.mənt/

Definitions

1. The process by which a marriage or contract is legally deemed void is known as nullification
2. This refers to the formal declaration that a legal agreement has no effect
3. The official act that legally cancels a marriage or agreement, making it as if it never existed

Etymology: The core of "annulment" is a Latin phrase: "annullare" was built from "ad", meaning "to", and "nullus", meaning "not any" or "nothing". To annul something was, quite literally, to reduce it to nothing. Medieval writers borrowed the verb through Old French, and the noun followed, first recorded in the 15th century in the sense of destruction, long before it came to mean the legal cancellation of a marriage or contract. The ending is the easy part. "-ment" comes from Latin "-mentum", a suffix that turns a verb into a noun naming the result or means of an action, so an annulment is the act or result of making something null. The word is a straightforward formation on "annul" rather than a coinage with a separate story of its own.

Synonyms: cancellation, repeal, voiding