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Orphan vs Null - What's the difference?

orphan | null |

As nouns the difference between orphan and null

is that orphan is a person, especially a , both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

As an adjective orphan

is deprived of parents (also (orphaned)).

As a verb orphan

is to deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive ).

orphan

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A person, especially a , both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.
  • * '>citation
  • A young animal with no mother.
  • (figuratively) Anything that is unsupported, as by its source, provider or caretaker, by reason of the supporter's or decision to abandon.
  • (typography) A single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page.
  • (computing) Any unreferenced object.
  • Derived terms

    * orphanage * orphancy * orphandom * orphanhood * orphaner * orphanet * orphan initialism * orphanism * orphanity * orphanize * orphanotropism * orphanry * orphanship * orphany

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Deprived of parents (also (orphaned)).
  • She is an orphan child.
  • (by extension, figuratively) Remaining after the removal of some form of support.
  • With its government funding curtailed, the gun registry became an orphan program.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive )
  • What do you do when you come across two orphaned polar bear cubs?
  • (computing) To make unavailable, as by removing the last remaining pointer or reference to.
  • When you removed that image tag, you orphaned the resized icon.
    Removing categories orphans pages from the main category tree.

    References

    * " orphan" at OneLook® Dictionary Search .

    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 ----