New Words Resolution: Zilch, Zip, Nada: Words For National Nothing Day, January 16

January 16 is National Nothing Day. Mark this empty occasion by learning this list of words describing things that are absent, or missing, or never there at all. It turns out that there are lots of ways to say nothing!
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. antimatter
    mass consisting of antiparticles of normal substances
    And why is the cosmos made of matter and not antimatter? Scientific American (Nov 28, 2019)
    Our universe is made from matter. Antimatter is its opposite, and fortunately it's extremely rare, since if the two collide they explode, releasing a huge amount of energy.
  2. barren
    completely wanting or lacking
    Then the fish disappeared from the river and the land became barren. Seattle Times (Dec 30, 2019)
    Barren is the opposite of fertile: a good way to refer to land where nothing grows, an empty wasteland. From Old French, it may have originated in Latin, where baraneus means "male-like" or "sterile" in the sense that men cannot give birth.
  3. dearth
    an insufficient quantity or number
    There was a dearth of playmakers on offense. Washington Post (Dec 29, 2019)
    Meaning "scarcity," dearth has its origins in the word dear, meaning "expensive," specifically referring to food. During a famine, there is a dearth of food so demand for it is high. Today it can refer to anything that's in short supply.
  4. depleted
    no longer sufficient
    The world’s forests are already being depleted at an alarming rate even without a surge in extra demand for timber. The Guardian (Feb 25, 2019)
    Plere means "to fill" in Latin, so deplere means "to empty" or "to reduce." Something depleted has been greatly reduced or used up.
  5. desolate
    providing no shelter or sustenance
    A storm separated them, and Melville mustered a team of locals in the desolate Lena Delta to find his missing shipmates. Reuters (Dec 11, 2019)
  6. evacuate
    move out of an unsafe location into safety
    California's effectiveness at minimizing wildfire deaths by containing the blazes and evacuating residents helped keep the national death toll from disasters low. Scientific American (Dec 30, 2019)
    All the words on this list with vac- in them have roots in the Latin vacuus, meaning empty. To evacuate is to empty out, most often referring to people leaving a building or area during an emergency like a fire.
  7. lack
    the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
    On Monday, Sweden shut down one of the four nuclear reactors at its largest power station after over 40 years of operation due to a lack of profitability. Seattle Times (Dec 31, 2019)
  8. nonexistent
    not having being or actuality
    The running game was practically nonexistent, as the absence of injured tailback Dalvin Cook was glaring. Washington Post (Dec 23, 2019)
    Something that does not exist, like a unicorn, is nonexistent.
  9. vacant
    not containing anyone or anything; unfilled or unoccupied
    He was at the Dec. 9 meeting where dozens of Duncan Park residents opposed a Habitat for Humanity project on a swath of vacant land. Washington Times (Dec 28, 2019)
  10. vacuous
    devoid of matter
    Tired of vacuous Nato summits spent tiptoeing around Trump, Macron let loose in an interview with the Economist, saying that Nato is suffering from “brain death”. The Guardian (Dec 5, 2019)
    Where vacant means a building with no tenants, a post without an occupant, or a piece of bare land without a building on it, vacuous has a more negative connotation, referring to someone who is empty-headed or an event that's a waste of time.
  11. vacuum
    an empty area or space
    They are filling a vacuum left when President Donald Trump decided to pull American troops from northern Syria. Washington Times (Dec 26, 2019)
    Outer space is a vacuum, meaning it contains no matter, though technically even empty space has a few atoms per cubic centimeter floating around. The portable electric air pump you use to clean your floors is a vacuum cleaner, which uses suction to remove dirt from your carpet.
  12. void
    an empty area or space
    And then there it was, the monstrous void at the middle of the galaxy Messier 87, staring back at you like the eye of Sauron. New York Times (Dec 22, 2019)
    A void is a completely empty space, containing absolutely nothing. You'll often see "null and void" in legal language, referring to something with no validity or importance.
  13. vortex
    a powerful circular current of water
    Weakening of the polar vortex over Antarctica in spring increases the forest fire danger index across eastern Australia. Scientific American (Dec 31, 2019)
Created on Thu Nov 07 13:56:13 EST 2019 (updated Tue Jan 06 15:11:47 EST 2026)

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