Arrant vs Null - What's the difference?
arrant | null |
Utter; complete.
* circa 1600 , (William Shakespeare), (Hamlet) , scene 1:
A non-existent or empty value or set of values.
Zero]] quantity of [[expression, expressions; nothing.
Something that has no force or meaning.
(computing) the ASCII or Unicode character (), represented by a zero value, that indicates no character and is sometimes used as a string terminator.
(computing) the attribute of an entity that has no valid value.
One of the beads in nulled work.
(statistics) null hypothesis
Having no validity, "null and void"
insignificant
* 1924 , Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove :
absent or non-existent
(mathematics) of the null set
(mathematics) of or comprising a value of precisely zero
(genetics, of a mutation) causing a complete loss of gene function, amorphic.
As an adjective arrant
is utter; complete.As a noun null is
zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.arrant
English
Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Adjective
(er)- arrant nonsense!'' Thomas Bennet, A Brief History of the Joint Use of Recompos'd Set Forms of Prayer...to wich is annexed a Discourse of the Gost of Prayer],
p. 187
- We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.
Usage notes
Particularly used in the phrase “arrant' knaves”, quoting ''Hamlet,'' and “' arrant nonsense”.Safire, 2006, considers “arrant nonsense” to be “wedded words”, a form of a fixed phrase. Some dictionaries consider arrant simply an alternative form of errant, but in usage they have long since split. The word has long been considered archaic, may be confused with errant, and is used primarily in , on which basis some recommend against using it.References
arrant/errant”, Common Errors in English Usage, Paul Brians *
On Language: Arrant Nonsense, (William Safire), January 22, 2006, (New York Times) * Merriam–Webster’s dictionary of English usage, 1995,
“errant, arrant”, pp. 406–407
null
English
Noun
(en noun)- (Francis Bacon)
- Since no date of birth was entered for the patient, his age is null .
Adjective
(en adjective)- In proportion as we descend the social scale our snobbishness fastens on to mere nothings which are perhaps no more null than the distinctions observed by the aristocracy, but, being more obscure, more peculiar to the individual, take us more by surprise.