void
pronunciation
How to pronounce void in British English:
UK [vɔɪd]
How to pronounce void in American English:
US [vɔɪd]
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- Noun:
- the state of nonexistence
- an empty area or space
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- Verb:
- declare invalid
- clear (a room, house, place) of occupants or empty or clear (a place, receptacle, etc.) of something
- take away the legal force of or render ineffective
- excrete or discharge from the body
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- Adjective:
- lacking any legal or binding force
- containing nothing
Word Origin
- void
- void: see avoid
- void (adj.)
- c. 1300, "unoccupied, vacant," from Anglo-French and Old French voide, viude "empty, vast, wide, hollow, waste, uncultivated, fallow," as a noun, "opening, hole; loss," from Latin vocivos "unoccupied, vacant," related to vacuus "empty" (see vacuum (n.)). Meaning "lacking or wanting" (something) is recorded from early 15c. Meaning "legally invalid, without legal efficacy" is attested from mid-15c.
- void (n.)
- 1610s, "unfilled space, gap," from void (adj.). Meaning "absolute empty space, vacuum" is from 1727.
- void (v.)
- "to clear" (some place, of something), c. 1300, from Anglo-French voider, Old French vuider "to empty, drain; to abandon, evacuate," from voide (see void (adj.)); meaning "to deprive (something) of legal validity" is attested from early 14c. Related: Voided; voiding.
Example
- 1. Peer-to-peer websites have filled the void .
- 2. Life breeds both plenitude and void , exuberance and depression .
- 3. Leucippus thought the universe was composed of atoms in a void .
- 4. The incoherence results from a political void .
- 5. It looked pretty blank and void of information .