different between nope vs null

English

Etymology 1

Representing no pronounced with the mouth snapped closed at the end. Compare yep and welp.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /no?p/, [no?p?]
• Rhymes: -??p

Particle

nope

1. (informal) No.
   • 1856, Sidney George Fisher, Charles Edward Fisher, Kanzas and the Constitution, p. 97,

     "Is my son here, Clarence?" asked Roger Oakley. "Nope. The whistle ain't blowed yet."

   • 1880, R. Foli, Ill weeds, p. 319,

     "No," from Tom, ending the word with so decided a pressure of the lips that it sounded like "nope."

   • 1890, Werner's Readings and Recitations, E.S. Werner, p. 50

     “Aunt Kat? And was Aunt Kat your only relation? Have you no father nor mother?” “Nope. Never had none ‘cept Aunt Kat. Her hull name was Katrina. She wuz Dutch she wuz."

   • c1930, Detroit (Michigan) Board of Education, The Detroit Educational Bulletin, Detroit (Michigan) Board of Education, p. 13

     1: I will not dishonour my country's speech by leaving off the last syllables of words, 2: I will say a good American "yes" and "no" in place of an Indian grunt "um-hum" and "nup-um" or a foreign "ya" or "yeh" and "nope"...

   • 2006, Charlotte Hudson Ewing, Red Land, AuthorHouse, ?ISBN, p. 54,

     Nope. Don't know as I do.

Usage notes

The usage as a reply in the form of a single-word sentence has, since the 1850s, been far more common than any others.

Translations

Antonyms

• yup
• yep
• yeah

Noun

nope (plural nopes)

1. (informal) A negative reply, no.
   • 1981, Tom Higgins, Practice quick...and swim, read in Dale Earnhardt: Rear View Mirror, Sports Publishing LLC, ?ISBN (2001), p. 32

     By one reporter's count, questions about the change elicited seven shakes of the head indicating no comment, five "yeps" and three "nopes" from Earnhardt.

2. (slang) An intensely undesirable thing, such as a circumstance or an animal, eliciting immediate repulsion without possibility of further consideration.
   • 2016, Sam Plank, This Cemetery With A Haunted Playground Is A Casket Full Of Nope, Movie Pilot, [1]

     This cemetery with a haunted playground is a casket full of nope.

Translations

Derived terms

• nope out

Etymology 2

Probably a rebracketing of an ope (see 1823 quote), from alp.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n??p/
• Rhymes: -??p

Noun

nope (plural nopes)

1. (archaic, except near Staffordshire) A bullfinch
   • 1613, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, read in The Complete Works of Michael Drayton, Now First Collected. With Introductions and Notes by Richard Hooper. Volume 2. Poly-olbion Elibron Classics (2005) [facsimile of John Russell Smith (1876 ed)], p. 146,

     To Philomell the next, the Linnet we prefer;/And by that warbling bird, the Wood-Lark place we then, /The Reed-sparrow, the Nope, the Red-breast, and the Wren, /The Yellow-pate: which though she hurt the blooming tree, /Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.

   • 1823, Edward Moor, Suffolk Words and Phrases: or, An attempt to collect the lingual localisms of that county, R. Hunter, p. 255

     I may note that olp, if pronounced ope, as it sometimes is, may be the origin of nope; an ope, and a nope, differ as little as possible.

   • 1836, David Booth, An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language, in which the Words are Explained in the Order of Their Natural Affinity, Independent of Alphabetical Arrangement, p. 380

     In Natural History, 'An Eye of Pheasants' was also 'A Nye of Pheasants', and even the human Eye was written a Nye. The Bulfinch was either a Nope, or an Ope ; the common Lizard, or Eft (Old English Evet) is also the Newt; the Water-Eft is the Water-Newt ; and the Saxon nedder, a serpent (probably allied to Nether, as crawling on the ground) has been transformed into an Adder.

   • 1882, Abram Smythe Palmer, Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions Or Words Perverted in Form Or Meaning, G. Bell and Sons, p. 583,

     Nope, an old name for the bullfinch used by Drayton (Wright), is a corrupt form for an ope, otherwise spelt aupe, olp, or alpe (Prompt.Parv.).

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:nope.

Etymology 3

Possibly influenced by nape and knap.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n??p/

Noun

nope (plural nopes)

1. (East Midlands and Northern England) A blow to the head.
   • 1823, Francis Grose, Pierce Egan, Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Francis Grose, p. xci

     (in an example of use of crackmans) The cull thought to have loped by breaking through the crackmans, but we fetched him back by a nope on the costard, which stopped his jaw.

   • 1829, Joseph Hunter, The Hallamshire Glossary, W. Pickering, p. 69,

     I'll fetch thee a nope.

Verb

nope (third-person singular simple present nopes, present participle noping, simple past and past participle noped)

1. (archaic, East Midlands and Northern England) To hit someone on the head.
   • 1851, Sylvester Judd, Margaret: a tale of the real and the ideal, blight and bloom, Phillips, Sampson, & Co., p. 183,

     "Nope him on the costard," said Ben Bolter.

   • 1891, T F Thiselton Dyer, Church-lore Gleanings, A. D. Innes & co., p. 65

     The sexton seemed reluctant to resume his old duties, remarking -- "Be I to nope Mr. M on the head if I catches him asleep?"

Anagrams

• open, peno-, peon, pone

Dutch

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: no?pe

Verb

nope

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of nopen

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: nope

Interjection

nope

1. (informal) nope

Anagrams

• open

French

Alternative forms

• noppe

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n?p/

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch noppe (“a fluff of wool, wool tassel”), from Old Dutch *noppo, *hnoppo, from Proto-Germanic *hnuppô (“nap of cloth”), from Proto-Indo-European *knew-, *kenw- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”). Cognate with Old English hnoppa (“nap of cloth”). More at nap.

Noun

nope f (plural nopes)

1. A tuft of wool; a knot in a fabric; nap.

Etymology 2

English nope

Interjection

nope

1. (informal, neologism) nope

Further reading

• “nope” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Alternative forms

• Ø (linguistics, abbreviation)
• ? (mathematics, abbreviation)

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French nul, from Latin n?llus.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /n?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Noun

null (plural nulls)

1. A non-existent or empty value or set of values.
2. Zero quantity of expressions; nothing.
3. Something that has no force or meaning.
4. (computing) the ASCII or Unicode character (?), represented by a zero value, that indicates no character and is sometimes used as a string terminator.
5. (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.

6. One of the beads in nulled work.
7. (statistics) Null hypothesis.

Translations

Adjective

null (comparative more null, superlative most null)

1. Having no validity; "null and void"
2. 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.

3. Absent or non-existent.
4. (mathematics) Of the null set.
5. (mathematics) Of or comprising a value of precisely zero.
6. (genetics, of a mutation) Causing a complete loss of gene function, amorphic.

Antonyms

• antinull
• non-null

Derived terms

• null determiner
• nullary
• nullity

Verb

null (third-person singular simple present nulls, present participle nulling, simple past and past participle nulled)

1. (transitive, archaic) To nullify; to annul.
2. To form nulls, or into nulls, as in a lathe.
3. (computing, slang, transitive) To crack; to remove restrictions or limitations in (software).

Related terms

• annul
• nulled work

See also

• nil

Cimbrian

Etymology

From Latin n?llus (“none”).

Numeral

null

1. (Luserna) zero

References

• “null” in Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle isole linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

Estonian

Numeral

null

1. zero

Faroese

Etymology

From Latin nullus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n?l?/
• Rhymes: -?l?

Numeral

null

1. zero

Noun

null n (genitive singular nuls, plural null)

1. (mathematics) the numeric symbol that represents the cardinal number zero

Declension

German

Etymology

From the noun Null (“the number zero”), from Italian nulla, from Latin nulla, feminine singular of nullus (“no, none”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n?l/

Numeral

null

1. zero; nil; nought; (tennis) love (integer number between -1 and 1, denoting no quantity at all)

2. (colloquial) zero; no

   Synonym: (überhaupt) kein

Coordinate terms

Adjective

null (not comparable)

1. (specialist, law, chiefly predicative) null (having no validity)

Declension

Derived terms

• null und nichtig (also in common use)

Further reading

• “null” in Duden online and “null” in Duden online; cp. “null” in Duden online and “null” in Duden online
• “null” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache; cp. “Null” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Hunsrik

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nul/

Numeral

null

1. zero

Further reading

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Latin nullus (“no one, none, no”), from Proto-Italic *ne oinolos, from Proto-Italic *oinos (“one”), from Proto-Indo-European *óynos (“one, single”).

Determiner

null

1. no (determiner: not any)

   ha null penger - to have no money

Numeral

null

1. zero, nought, nil

Noun

null m (definite singular nullen, indefinite plural nuller, definite plural nullene)
null n (definite singular nullet, indefinite plural null or nuller, definite plural nulla or nullene)

1. zero (numeric symbol of zero), nought, nil
2. a nobody or nonentity (derogatory about a person)

Derived terms

• nullstille
• nulltoleranse
• nullvekst

References

• “null” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Latin nullus

Determiner

null

1. no (determiner: not any)

   ha null pengar - to have no money

Numeral

null

1. zero, nought, nil

Noun

null m (definite singular nullen, indefinite plural nullar, definite plural nullane)
null n (definite singular nullet, indefinite plural null, definite plural nulla)

1. zero (numeric symbol of zero), nought, nil
2. a nobody or nonentity (derogatory about a person)

Derived terms

• nulltoleranse
• nullvekst

References

• “null” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Pennsylvania German

Etymology

Compare German null.

Numeral

null

1. zero