anuller

Forms

anuller (present participle anullant; past participle anullé; first-person singular present anul)^[1]

• anuler, anullier, anulier, annuller, adnuller, adnuler, enuler^[2][3][4]

The spelling adnuller runs from 1335 to 1477, and modern annuler from the end of the 14th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin annūllō (“to annihilate, annul”).^[1][3][5] Bloch and Wartburg take it from Medieval Latin and note that the Latin verb is rare in late antiquity;^[6] Lewis and Short cite it from the Vulgate.^[7] The Latin verb is formed ad- + nūllus (“none, not any”) + -ō.^[1] Old French also had a verb nuller “to destroy”, formed on nul.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The FEW and Bloch and Wartburg date the first record to 1289, a document Godefroy cites for the form anulier; the sense is the legal one, “to make (an act, a contract, a decree, a trial) void”.^[3][6][9] The DEAF also lists enuler in Gautier de Coinci's miracle D'un chevalier, edited from a Picard manuscript of the second half of the 13th century.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Beside the legal sense the verb meant “to bring to nothing, destroy”, as when gifts are to be cancelled in Gilles li Muisis or an English raid comes to nothing in Froissart, and “to regard as nothing” in the Estoire del Saint Graal.^[11][9][12] Intransitively it meant “to come to nothing”, said of devotion and of a custom falling out of use.^[11][3] The noun anullacion appears in 1320, but the usual noun until the end of the 18th century was annulement.^[3][6]

Modern French annuler added uses in banking and bookkeeping from 1730, and the dialects of Liège, Jersey and Vaud kept the verb.^[3]

Timeline

• 1289 – anulier in a document Godefroy cites.^[3][9][6]
• 1293 – annulleit in a document from Liège.^[3][9]
• c. 1320 – anullier in the Ovide moralisé.^[2][13]
• 1320 – the noun anullacion.^[3]
• 1335 – adnullons in a royal act.^[9][3]
• 1386 – first Anglo-Norman record.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (law) to annul, declare void (an act, a contract, a decree, a trial).^[1][2][3]
2. to bring to nothing, destroy, suppress.^[11][4]
3. to regard as nothing, scorn.^[12]
4. (intransitive) to come to nothing, fall out of use.^[11][3]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word annuller, with the spellings adnuller, adnullir, annullir, anuler and anuller, first cites it from 1386, and gives the senses “to destroy, undo” and “to annul, cancel, rescind”.^[4] English annul, from the late 14th century, is from the Anglo-French and Old French verb or directly from Late Latin.^[14]

Word family

• anullacion

Descendants

• Middle French anuller (→ French annuler)^[15]
• Middle English annullen (borrowed; → English annul)^[4][14]

Related words

• nul
• nuller

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DEAF head the word anuler, Godefroy anuller, the AND annuller and the DMF annuler.^{[11][2][9][4][15]} It is chiefly a word of charters and law.^[3][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Baldinger, Kurt; Möhren, Frankwalt; Städtler, Thomas, eds. (1971–2021), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF), Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften; DEAFél / DEAFpré, deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de, p. s.v. anuler
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 24:618
4. ^ a b c d e f Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. annuller
5. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 48
6. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 68
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. annullo
8. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7:233
9. ^ a b c d e f Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon, p. 8:135
10. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. CoincyI41/42R
11. ^ a b c d e Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 1:408
12. ^ a b Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon, p. 1:305
13. ^ Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. OvMorB
14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. annuler