Nulls

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A state of lacking any value or significance
2. instances of voids or absences in data or objects
3. a mathematical concept representing the absence of quantity or existence

Etymology: "Nulls" is the third-person singular present form of the verb "null," meaning to make something void or of no effect, so it describes an action taken on something. The verb and its noun relatives trace back to Latin "nullus," meaning "not any" or "none," formed from "ne" (not) and "ullus" (any). That negative sense carried through the word's history, which is why "null" today signals absence or nothing at all. The word reached English through Middle French "nul," which was itself descended from Latin "nullus" by way of Old French "nul." English borrowed it from Middle French, so the form we use is a French-filtered version of the Latin original. Its Latin ancestor was a straightforward negative, and its path into English shows how a plain word for "none" could take on the technical sense of a legal or mathematical void.