Disannulled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Formally declared null and void, so that a law, contract or decree no longer has any legal force
2. Rendered invalid and set aside by an official act, as though it had never been made in the first place
3. Cancelled or annulled by authority, stripped of effect and treated as no longer binding or existing

Etymology: "Disannulled" is the past tense and past participle of "disannul," so it takes its history from that verb. "Disannul" is formed from the prefix "dis-" plus "annul," and the prefix does the work here: it reverses the action of the base word. To annul something is to make it void, and to disannul is to undo that voiding, or more precisely to annul an annulment, which is the sense the word carries when a formal declaration of nullity is itself cancelled. The base word "annul" comes from Late Latin "annullare," built from Latin "ad-" and "nullum," meaning "nothing." Its core idea is therefore a thing reduced to nothing, which explains why the word has always sat in legal and formal contexts, where something must be officially made to count for nothing. "Disannul" is the more uncommon of the pair, and its past forms carry that same formal weight.

Synonyms: annulled, cancelled, revoked, voided, nullified

Antonyms: ratified, validated, confirmed, upheld