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Pawl vs Null - What's the difference?

pawl | null |

As nouns the difference between pawl and null

is that pawl is a pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (eg on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

As a verb pawl

is to stop with a pawl.

pawl

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.
  • * 1994 , Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing :
  • The nails in the rim of the wheel went ratcheting over the leather pawl and the wheel slowed and came to a stop and the woman turned to the crowd and smiled.
  • * 1910 , Victor Appleton, Tom Swift and his Motorcycle
  • A pawl is a sort of catch that fits into a ratchet wheel and pushes it around, or it may be used as a catch to prevent the backward motion of a windlass or the wheel on a derrick.

    Derived terms

    * pawl bitt * pawl rim

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To stop with a pawl.
  • Derived terms

    * pawl the capstan

    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 ----