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Nought vs Null - What's the difference?

nought | null |

As nouns the difference between nought and null

is that nought is nothing; something which does not exist while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

As an adjective nought

is (obsolete) good for nothing; worthless.

As a verb nought

is to abase, to set at nought.

As an adverb nought

is to no extent; in no way; not at all.

As a pronoun nought

is nothing; zero.

nought

English

Alternative forms

* naught, nocht (Scottish ), nowt

Noun

(en noun)
  • Nothing; something which does not exist.
  • A thing or person of no worth or value; nil.
  • Not any quantity of number; zero; the score of no points in a game.
  • 0.4 (a number) = nought point four / zero point four
  • The figure or character representing, or having the shape of, zero.
  • Derived terms

    * noughties * noughty * dreadnought

    Adjective

    (head)
  • (obsolete) Good for nothing; worthless.
  • * 1611 , 20:14:
  • It is nought', it is ' nought , saith the buyer, but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.
  • Wicked, immoral.
  • * (rfdate) Fuller:
  • No man can be stark nought at once.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To abase, to set at nought.
  • * 1393 , , translated by Grace Warrack, 1901
  • In this naked word sin, our Lord brought to my mind, generally, all that is not good, and the shameful despite and the utter noughting' that He bare for us in this life, and His dying; and all the pains and passions of all His creatures, ghostly and bodily; (for we be all partly '''noughted''', and we shall be '''noughted''' following our Master, Jesus, till we be full purged, that is to say, till we be fully ' noughted of our deadly flesh and of all our inward affections which are not very good;)
  • * 1983 , : The Last Self-Help Book , page 25
  • The nought which is you has devoured the style and been sustained for a while as a non-you until the style is emptied out by the noughting self.
  • * 2001 , William Desmond, Ethics and the Between , page 507
  • Your usefulness is zero, your worth zero, and as zero you deserve to be treated as nothing, and in the extreme, noughted .
  • * 2003 , Wu Wei Wei, The Tenth Man: The Great Joke (which Made Lazarus Laugh) (ISBN 1591810078), page 81:
  • What is the use of noughting' yourself? Who is ' noughting who? What is the use of searching for yourself? Who is searching for who? There are not two of you ! You cannot find yourself, or the absence of yourself.

    Adverb

    (head)
  • To no extent; in no way; not at all.
  • Not.
  • Pronoun

    (head)
  • Nothing; zero.
  • See also

    * naught * ought

    References

    * * Notes:

    null

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A non-existent or empty value or set of values.
  • Zero]] quantity of [[expression, expressions; nothing.
  • (Francis Bacon)
  • 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.
  • Since no date of birth was entered for the patient, his age is null .
  • One of the beads in nulled work.
  • (statistics) null hypothesis
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having no validity, "null and void"
  • insignificant
  • * 1924 , Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove :
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Derived terms

    * nullity

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to nullify; to annul
  • (Milton)

    See also

    * nil ----