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nul

Etymology and origin of the French word nul

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Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
842, Serments de Strasbourg
Inherited from
Latin nullus
Ultimate origin
Latin (ūnus)

Pronunciation

Forms

nul m (feminine nulle)[1] Old French oblique nului, which lasted into the 16th century.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nūllus (“not any, none; worthless”).[3][4][5][6][7] The Latin word is formed from the negation ne and ūllus (“any, anyone”), itself derived from ūnus (“one”) (see un).[4][8][2] From the earliest Latin texts “nūllus” took the place of nēmō (“nobody”) in some cases and tended to drive it out of speech; only Romanian kept “nēmō”.[4] The sense “worthless” seems to have been taken again from Latin about the 16th century.[5]

Compare Old Occitan nul, which was only a negative adjective, and Italian nullo, with both senses.[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found in 842 in the Strasbourg Oaths as an indefinite adjective, “no, not any”: nul plaid nunquam prindrai “I shall never make any agreement”.[3][4][2]

Semantic evolution

It is a pronoun “no one” from the second half of the 10th century (Vie de saint Léger), with nul autre about 1170 and nulle part about 1174.[3][4] As a qualifying adjective it first had the legal sense “void, without legal force” (1281); the general sense “of no value” is in Amyot (1559), of a person without intellectual qualities in Rousseau (1769), and être nul en “hopeless at” in Senancour (1804).[3][4]

A race with no winner was nulle in 1828, whence match nul, and nombre nul “zero” is recorded in 1903.[3][9] The feminine noun nulle meant zero (1640) and a meaningless character in coded letters (1690).[3] At school nul became a harsh mark, and, from about 1985 young speakers used c'est nul and un nul for anything or anyone worthless, nullard is dated 1953.[4]

Timeline

  • 842 – Strasbourg Oaths, “not any”.[3]
  • Late 10th century – Pronoun “no one”, Vie de saint Léger.[3]
  • c. 1174 – Nulle part.[3]
  • c. 1180 – Nullement.[5]
  • 1281 – “Legally void”.[3]
  • 1559 – “Worthless”, Amyot.[3]
  • 1769 – Of a person, Rousseau.[3]
  • 1828 – A race ending in a dead heat.[9]
  • 1953 – Nullard.[3]
  • c. 1985 – C'est nul in young people's speech.[4]

Meanings

Determiner

  1. (literary) No, not any: nul homme n'en sera exempté, sans nul doute, nul doute que.[10][8]

Pronoun

  1. (literary) No one, nobody: nul n'est censé ignorer la loi.[10][2]

Adjective

  1. (law) null, void, without legal force: un testament nul.[3][4]
  2. Of no value, worthless, (familiar) rubbish, lousy: un film nul, c'est nul.[3][1]
  3. Of a person, worthless, hopeless: être nul en maths.[4][1]
  4. Equal to zero, nil; in sport, drawn: match nul.[3][1]

Noun

  1. (familiar) A useless person, a loser: c'est un nul.[4][1]

Word family

  • nullement
  • nullard
  • nullité
  • annuler
  • un
  • Latin nūllus

Usage notes

Nulle part “nowhere” is the one use of the indefinite adjective common in everyday French; elsewhere aucun is usual.[3][10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7, 232a
  8. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  9. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  10. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Nul.” Etymologically, 18 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/nul. Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.

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