annulment

Etymology

It is probably partly, especially in early use, borrowed from Middle French annullement (“the action of annulling a law or agreement”), recorded from about 1420, and partly formed from English annul + -ment.^[2] Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford give only the English formation,^[3][4] and Dictionary.com gives both as alternatives.^[5] The noun is recorded even earlier as Anglo-Norman annullement (“destruction, undoing; cancellation”), from 1393–94.^[6] Annul is from Anglo-Norman anuller (“to make void, invalidate”), from Late Latin annullō (“to reduce to nothing, annihilate; to invalidate”),^[2][3][7] from ad- and nūllus (“none”),^[2][3][7] from Proto-Indo-European *ne- (“not”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The reducing of something to nothing, or the putting of an end to it; abolition: before 1492, in Caxton's translation of Vitas Patrum, printed in 1495.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was close to the Latin idea of reducing something to nothing, and the Shorter Oxford glosses it as total destruction.^[4][2] The legal sense, declaring an agreement or decision invalid, appears in 1651,^[2][8] though in that meaning English had already used annulling, from the late 14th century.^[3] The OED also points to the earlier noun annullation.^[2] The marriage sense is recorded from 1800, in a translation of the works of Roland de La Platière.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged sets it apart from divorce and separation,^[7] and the American Heritage Dictionary explains that such a declaration states the marriage was never valid.^[9]

Timeline

• before 1492 – the reducing of something to nothing; abolition.^[2][8]
• 1651 – the declaring of an official agreement or decision to be invalid.^[2][8] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1660s.^[3]
• 1800 – the formal declaration that a marriage has been annulled.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of annulling something, or the state of having been annulled; formal invalidation: the annulment of the election result.^{[10][11][7][2]}
2. A declaration by a court or church that a marriage was never valid, as distinct from a divorce: The couple sought an annulment after six weeks.^{[11][7][9][10]}
3. The reducing of something to nothing; total destruction or abolition.^[2][4]

Word family

• nonannulment

Related words

• annul
• null
• nullify

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster