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Want vs Null - What's the difference?

want | null |

As a proper noun want

is a personification of want.

As a noun null is

zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

want

English

Alternative forms

* waunt (obsolete)

Verb

(en verb)
  • To wish for or to desire (something).
  • * , chapter=13
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
  • , title= Geothermal Energy , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.}}
  • * Dryden
  • The disposition, the manners, and the thoughts are all before it; where any of those are wanting' or imperfect, so much ' wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life.
  • To lack, not to have (something).
  • *, II.3.7:
  • he that hath skill to be a pilot wants' a ship; and he that could govern a commonwealth' wants means to exercise his worth, hath not a poor office to manage.
  • * James Merrick
  • Not what we wish, but what we want , / Oh, let thy grace supply!
  • * Addison
  • I observed that your whip wanted a lash to it.
  • (colloquially with verbal noun as object) To be in need of; to require (something).
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 2
  • The mowing-machine always wanted oiling. Barnet turned it under Jacob's window, and it creaked—creaked, and rattled across the lawn and creaked again.
  • (dated) To be in a state of destitution; to be needy; to lack.
  • * Ben Jonson
  • You have a gift, sir (thank your education), / Will never let you want .
  • * Alexander Pope
  • For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find / What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind.

    Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb. See

    Synonyms

    * (desire) set one's heart on, wish for, would like * (lack) be without * (require) need, be in need of

    Derived terms

    * I want to know * want-away * wanted * want for * wanting *

    Noun

    (poverty)
  • (countable) A desire, wish, longing.
  • (countable, often, followed by of) Lack, absence.
  • * , King Henry VI Part 2 , act 4, sc. 8:
  • [H]eavens and honour be witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.
  • * :
  • For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
    For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
    For want of a horse the rider was lost.
    For want of a rider the battle was lost.
    For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
    And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
  • (uncountable) Poverty.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want .
  • Something needed or desired; a thing of which the loss is felt.
  • * Paley
  • Habitual superfluities become actual wants .
  • (UK, mining) A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
  • Derived terms

    * want ad

    References

    Statistics

    *

    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 ----