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Toward vs Null - What's the difference?

toward | null |

As a preposition toward

is in the direction of.

As an adjective toward

is (obsolete) future; to come.

As a noun null is

zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

toward

English

Preposition

(en-prep) (mainly in American English)
  • In the direction of.
  • :
  • *(Bible), (w) xxiv. 1
  • *:He set his face toward the wilderness.
  • *
  • *:Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
  • In relation to (someone or something).
  • :
  • *(Bible), (w)
  • *:His eye shall be evil toward his brother.
  • For the purpose of attaining (an aim).
  • :
  • Located close to; near (a time or place).
  • :
  • *(Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)
  • *:I am toward nine years older since I left you.
  • Synonyms

    * towards

    Usage notes

    * Although some have tried to discern a semantic distinction between the words (term) and (towards), the difference is merely dialectal. (term) is more common in American English and (towards) is the predominant form in British English.

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (obsolete) Future; to come.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.iv:
  • ere that wished day his beame disclosd, / He either enuying my toward good, / Or of himselfe to treason ill disposd / One day vnto me came in friendly mood [...].
  • (dated) Approaching, coming near; impending; present, at hand.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward ?
  • * 1843 , '', book 2, ch. XV, ''Practical — Devotional
  • On the morrow […] orders the Cellerarius to send off his carpenters to demolish the said structure brevi manu , and lay up the wood in safe keeping. Old Dean Herbert, hearing what was toward , comes tottering along hither, to plead humbly for himself and his mill.
  • Yielding, pliant; docile; ready or apt to learn; not froward.
  • (obsolete, or, archaic) Promising, likely; froward.
  • Why, that is spoken like a toward prince. ? Shakespeare.

    Statistics

    * American English

    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 ----