Needful vs Null - What's the difference?
needful | null |
Needed; necessary; mandatory; requisite; indispensible.
* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 5
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 nouns the difference between needful and null
is that needful is anything necessary or requisite while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.As an adjective needful
is needed; necessary; mandatory; requisite; indispensible.needful
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- So I went to keep house with him at the Why Not? and my aunt sent down my bag of clothes, and would have made over to Elzevir the pittance that my father left for my keep, but he said it was not needful , and he would have none of it.
Usage notes
(Do the needful) Commonly found in phrases such as "do the needful" or "please do the needful"; which occur commonly in Indian English but are held as archaic in other dialects; nonetheless being heard more and more by speakers of said dialects in their interactions with speakers of Indian English. This has to some extent lead to these phrases being seen as stereotypical of Indian English and used in a parodying context by speakers of other dialects, some of whom may find their usage odd and/or pretentious.Derived terms
* do the needfulnull
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.