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Tonic vs Null - What's the difference?

tonic | null |

As nouns the difference between tonic and null

is that tonic is a substance with medicinal properties intended to restore or invigorate or tonic can be (music) the first note of a scale while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

As an adjective tonic

is (physics|pathology) pertaining to tension, especially of muscles or tonic can be (music) pertaining to the keynote of a composition.

tonic

English

Alternative forms

* tonick (obsolete)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) . 17th century writers believed health to be derived from firmly stretched muscles, thus tonic''; the extension of ''tonic medicine appeared in the late 18th century.

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (physics, pathology) Pertaining to tension, especially of muscles.
  • * 2009 , Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice , Vintage 2010, p. 316:
  • Out in front and across the street, Doc noted half a dozen or so young men, not loitering or doing substances but poised and tonic , as if waiting for some standing order to take effect.
  • Restorative, curative or invigorating.
  • The arrival of the new members had a tonic effect on the team.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A substance with medicinal properties intended to restore or invigorate.
  • We used to brew a tonic from a particular kind of root.
  • Tonic water.
  • (US, Northeastern US) Any of various carbonated, non-alcoholic beverages; soda pop.
  • (figuratively) Something that revitalises or reinvigorates.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=February 5 , author=Paul Fletcher , title=Newcastle 4 - 4 Arsenal , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The result is the perfect tonic for Newcastle, coming at the end of a week that saw the departure of Andy Carroll to Liverpool on Monday and an injury to Shola Ameobi during Wednesday's defeat at Fulham.}}

    Etymology 2

    From .

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (music) Pertaining to the keynote of a composition.
  • Pertaining to the accent or stress in a word or in speech.
  • Of or relating to tones or sounds; specifically (phonetics, dated) being or relating to a speech sound made with tone unmixed and undimmed by obstruction, i.e. a vowel or diphthong.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (music) The first note of a scale.
  • (music) The triad built on the tonic note.
  • (phonetics) A tonic element or letter; a vowel or a diphthong.
  • Anagrams

    * ontic ----

    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 ----