void

• IPA^(key): /vɔɪd/, sometimes /vwɑːd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔɪd, sometimes /ɑːd/

Borrowed from Old French vuit, voide, vuide (modern vide), in turn from a Vulgar Latin *vocitus, related to Latin vacuus (“empty”).

void (not comparable)

1. Containing nothing; empty; vacant; not occupied; not filled.
   • Bible, Genesis i. 2

     The earth was without form, and void.

   • Shakespeare

     I'll get me to a place more void.

   • Massinger

     I'll chain him in my study, that, at void hours, / I may run over the story of his country.

2. Having no incumbent; unoccupied; said of offices etc.
   • Camden

     divers great offices that had been long void

3. Being without; destitute; devoid.
   • Bible, Proverbs xi. 12

     He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbor.

4. Not producing any effect; ineffectual; vain.
   • Bible, Isa. lv. 11

     [My word] shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.

   • Bible, Jer. xix. 7

     I will make void the counsel of Judah.

5. Of no legal force or effect, incapable of confirmation or ratification.

   null and void

6. Containing no immaterial quality; destitute of mind or soul.
   • Alexander Pope

     idol, void and vain

7. (computing, programming, of a function or method) That does not return a value.
   • 2005, Craig Larman, Applying UML and patterns

     In particular, the roll method is void — it has no return value.

   • 2007, Andrew Krause, Foundations of GTK+ Development

     The return value can safely be ignored if it is a void function.

void (plural voids)

1. An empty space; a vacuum.

   Nobody has crossed the void since one man died trying three hundred years ago; it's high time we had another go.

   • Alexander Pope

     Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, / And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

2. (astronomy) An extended region of space containing no galaxies
3. (materials science) A collection of adjacent vacancies inside a crystal lattice.
4. (fluid mechanics) A pocket of vapour inside a fluid flow, created by cavitation.

• ((engineering) collection of vacancies): pore
• ((engineering) pocket of vapour in fluid): bubble

void (third-person singular simple present voids, present participle voiding, simple past and past participle voided)

1. (transitive) To make invalid or worthless.

   He voided the check and returned it.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Earl of Clarendon

     It was become a practice […] to void the security that was at any time given for money so borrowed.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Bishop Burnet

     after they had voided the obligation of the oath he had taken

2. (transitive, medicine) To empty.

   void one’s bowels

3. To throw or send out; to evacuate; to emit; to discharge.

   to void excrement

   • c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals):

     You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Webster

     With shovel, like a fury, voided out / The earth and scattered bones.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Isaac Barrow

     a watchful application of mind in voiding prejudices

4. (intransitive, obsolete) To withdraw, depart.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xvj, in Le Morte Darthur, book I:

     BY than come in to the feld kynge Ban as fyers as a lyon […] / Ha a said kyng Lot we must be discomfyte / for yonder I see the moste valyaunt knyght of the world / and the man of the most renoume / for suche ij bretheren as is kyng Ban & kyng bors ar not lyuynge / wherfore we must nedes voyde or deye

5. (transitive, obsolete) To remove the contents of; to make or leave vacant or empty; to quit; to leave.

   to void a table

   • 1394, Chaucer, “v. 1149”, in The Franklin's Tale‎:

     Somtyme a castel, al of lym and stoon; And whan hem lyked, voyded it anon.

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals):

     If they will fight with us, bid them come down, / Or void the field.

• (make invalid or worthless): annul, cancel
• ((medicine) to empty): evacuate

Alteration of voidee.

void (plural voids)

1. (now rare, historical) A voidee. [from 15th c.]
   • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 68:

     Late on the final evening, as the customary ‘void’ – spiced wine and sweetmeats – was served, more elaborate disguisings in the great hall culminated in the release of a flock of white doves.

• Ovid, divo

• voit

void

1. third-person singular indicative present form of veoir