Annulters

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of individuals or mechanisms that formally revoke or invalidate legal agreements or obligations
2. Entities that act to negate effects or influence, particularly in legal or official capacities
3. Persons or tools tasked with the cancellation of certain rights, agreements, or formal declarations

Etymology: Annul comes from the Latin "nullus", meaning "none", so to annul something is, at root, to reduce it to nothing. The Latin verb "annullare" was built from "ad" plus "nullus", passed into Old French as "annuler", and was taken into English in the late Middle Ages. English kept the legal sense of declaring something void, as when a marriage or contract is treated as though it never existed. The ending comes from the English agent suffix "-er", descended from Old English "-ere", which marks a person who performs an action. Attached to "annul", it gives a doer of annulling, and the plural adds an "s" for a group of such people. Because the form is rare and the suffix ordinary, the word is best understood as a transparent formation from "annul" rather than a term with a documented history of its own.

Synonyms: repealers, voiders, cancellers, nullifiers, abolishers