different between when vs null

English

Alternative forms

• wen (eye dialect)

Etymology

From Middle English when(ne), whanne, from Old English hwenne, hwænne, hwonne (“when”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwan, from Proto-Germanic *hwan (“at what time, when”), from Proto-Indo-European *k?is (“interrogative base”).

Cognate with Dutch wanneer (“when”) and wen (“when, if”), Low German wannehr (“when”), wann (“when”) and wenn (“if, when”), German wann (“when”) and wenn (“when, if”), Gothic ???????????? (?an, “when, how”), Latin quand? (“when”). More at who.

Interjection sense: a playful misunderstanding of "say when" (i.e. say something / speak up when you want me to stop) as "say [the word] when".

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: hw?n, w?n, IPA^(key): /??n/, /w?n/
  • (pin–pen merger) IPA^(key): /??n/, /w?n/
• (Ireland, Scotland) enPR: hw?n, IPA^(key): /??n/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: w?n, IPA^(key): /w?n/
• (in accents without the wine–whine merger)
• (in accents with the wine–whine merger)
• (in accents with the wine–whine merger)
• Rhymes: -?n
• Homophone: wen (in accents with the wine-whine merger), win (in accents with the wine–whine merger and the pin–pen merger)

Adverb

when (not comparable)

1. (interrogative) At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
   • 1834, Samuel Kirkham, English Grammar in Familiar Lectures, page 117:

     What words are used as interrogative pronouns? — Give examples.

     When are the words, what, which, and that, called adj. pron.?

     When are they called interrogative pronominal adjectives?

2. At an earlier time and under different, usually less favorable, circumstances.

3. (relative) At which, on which, during which: often omitted or replaced with that.

Translations

Conjunction

when

1. At (or as soon as) that time that; at the (or any and every) time that; if.
2. During the time that; at the time of the action of the following clause or participle phrase.
3. At what time; at which time.
   • 1839, John Donne, The Works of John Donne: Sermons, Letters, Poems, page 310:

     I am at London only to provide for Monday, when I shall use that favour which my Lady Bedford hath afforded me, of giving her name to my daughter; which I mention to you, […]

   • 1929, Donald John Munro, The Roaring Forties and After (page 38)

     He sat at the door of his kitchen watching, and seeing there was nothing else for it we buckled to and soon had the job done; when we were admitted to the kitchen and given a really good meal.

4. Since; given the fact that; considering that.

5. Whereas; although; at the same time as; in spite of the fact that.

Synonyms

• (as soon as): as soon as, immediately, once
• (every time that): whenever
• (during the time that): while, whilst; see also Thesaurus:while
• (at any time that): whenever
• (at which time):
• (given the fact that): given that, seeing that; see also Thesaurus:because
• (in spite of the fact that): but, where, whereas

Derived terms

• know someone when
• whenwe

Translations

Pronoun

when

1. (interrogative) What time; which time.
   • 1831 (published), John Davies, Orchestra Or, a Poem of Dancing, in Robert Southey, Select Works of the British Poets: From Chaucer to Jonson, with Biographical Sketches, page 706:

     Homer, to whom the Muses did carouse

     A great deep cup with heav'nly nectar fill'd,

     The greatest, deepest cup in Jove's great house,

     (For Jove himself had so expressly will'd)

     He drank off all, nor let one drop be spill'd;

     Since when, his brain that had before been dry,

     Became the well-spring of all poetry.

   • 1833, William Potts Dewees, A Treatise on the Diseases of Females, page 495:

     [This] we imagined might have been owing to some accidental condition of the system, or perhaps idiosyncracy; this led us to a second trial, but we experienced the same inconveniences, since when, we have altogether abandoned their use.

   • 2012, Emile Letournel, Robert Judet, Fractures of the Acetabulum, Springer Science & Business Media (?ISBN), page 385:

     So we combined the Kocher-Langenbeck and iliofemoral approach until 1965, since when we have combined the ilioinguinal and Kocher-Langenbeck approaches.

2. The time that.

Translations

Noun

when (plural whens)

1. The time at which something happens.
   • 2008, Paolo Aite, Lanscapes of the Psyche, Ipoc Press (?ISBN), page 151:

     For the moment, suffice it to say that the stories told through the whens and hows of building a scene differentiate individual desires and needs more clearly than shared speech was up to then able to communicate.

Translations

Interjection

when

1. (often humorous) That's enough, a command to stop adding something, especially an ingredient of food or drink -- referring to say when.
2. (obsolete) Expressing impatience. (Compare what.)
   • c. 1600, Sir John Oldcastle, iv. 1:

     Set, parson, set; the dice die in my hand.

     When, parson, when! what, can you find no more?

   • c. 1615-1657, Thomas Middleton, More Dissemblers Besides Women, volume 1:

     Why, when? begin, sir: I must stay your leisure.

Translations

Derived terms

• whenever

See also

• since when

References

• when at OneLook Dictionary Search
• when in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• hewn

Middle English

Etymology 1

Adverb

when

1. Alternative form of whenne

Conjunction

when

1. Alternative form of whenne

Etymology 2

Verb

when

1. Alternative form of winnen (“to win”)

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