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Audio Help [nil] Pronunciation Key | 1. | nothing; naught; zero. |
| 2. | having no value or existence: His credit rating is nil. |
] | Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. |
nil
To learn more about nil visit Britannica.com
| © 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |
| nil
Audio Help (nĭl) Pronunciation Key
n. Nothing; zero. [Latin nīl, contraction of nihil; see ne in Indo-European roots.] nil adj. |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
nil
| Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper |
| nil | |
noun | |
| a quantity of no importance; "it looked like nothing I had ever seen before"; "reduced to nil all the work we had done"; "we racked up a pathetic goose egg"; "it was all for naught"; "I didn't hear zilch about it" |
| WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University. |
nil [nil] noun
Example: Leeds United won two-nil / by two goals to nil.
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| Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary, © 2000-2006 K Dictionaries Ltd. |
NIL
/nil/ 1. New Implementation of Lisp. A language intended to be the successor of MacLisp. A large Lisp, implemented mostly in VAX assembly language. A forerunner of Common LISP.
["NIL: A Perspective", Jon L. White, MACSYMA Users' Conf Proc, 1979].
2. Network Implementation Language. Strom & Yemini, TJWRC, IBM. Implementation of complex networking protocols in a modular fashion.
["NIL: An Integrated Language and System for Distributed Programming", R. Strom et al, SIGPLAN Notices 18(6):73-82 (June 1983)].
3. Empty list or False. In Lisp, the empty list (or "nil list") is used to represent the Boolean value False. This is possible because Lisp is not typed. True is represented by the special atom "t".
4. Spoken in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the "-P" convention it means "No". Most hackers assume this derives simply from LISP, but NIL meaning "no" was well-established among radio hams decades before LISP existed. The historical connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was strong enough that this may have been an influence.
[The Jargon File]
| The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe |
NIL
/nil/ No. Used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the `-P' convention. Most hackers assume this derives simply from LISP terminology for `false' (see also T), but NIL as a negative reply was well-established among radio hams decades before the advent of LISP. The historical connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was strong enough that this may have been an influence.| Jargon File 4.2.0 |
Nil
Nil\ [See Nill, v. t.] Will not. [Obs.] --Chaucer.| Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. |
Nil
Nil\, n. & a. [L., a contr. of nihil.] Nothing; of no account; worthless; -- a term often used for canceling, in accounts or bookkeeping. --A. J. Ellis.| Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. |
| NIL nothing, I have nothing for you (shortwave transmission) |
| The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
NIL
NIL: in Acronym Finder
| Acronym Finder, © 1988-2007 Mountain Data Systems |
nil
nil: in CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary
| On-line Medical Dictionary, © 1997-98 Academic Medical Publishing & CancerWEB |
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