Saturday, April 25, 2015

A-to-Z Challenge: V

And now, because I’m feeling cheery, void.



Void first showed up in the early fourteenth century meaning vacant or to clear something away. It wasn’t until the early seventeenth century that it just meant unoccupied space in general, and the vacuum of space until a century after that. Anyway, void comes from the Anglo French/Old French voide/viude, empty, vast, or uncultivated. It comes from the classical Latin vocivos, empty, and vacuus, emptiness or void. And where vacuum comes from, of course.

Void: vacuum, but shorter and with a different consonant at the end.

Sources

13 comments:

  1. So, void and vacuum is basically the same word. That's cool. Quite interesting how things develop >:)

    Cold As Heaven

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  2. So how did we get the vacuum cleaner? A void of dirt on the carpet seems odd.

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  3. Void and vacuum do have similar meanings. I was going to ask the same question as Alex. :P

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  4. I do like when I void my house of dirt with my vacuum.


    Good luck with the A to Z Challenge!
    A to Z Co-Host S. L. Hennessy
    http://pensuasion.blogspot.com/

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  5. I like the vast aspect of void. Sometimes a void can feel that way.

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  6. I guess a void doesn't have to be a vacuum but a vacuum has to be a void.

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  7. Another one that seems to make sense; now I wonder about avoid

    betty

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  8. There was a time when people didn't have a concept of empty, so that makes sense. It's like computer meant something different before the machines we use were invented. I mean, there was no zero in numbers originally.

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  9. Yep, this one makes sense. Thanks for all these words, Romans!

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  10. Interesting. I mostly use it in a context of "to cancel". Like to void the check. But, then, I'm all about bookkeeping.
    Visit me at: Life & Faith in Caneyhead
    I am Ensign B of Tremps' Troops
    with the A to Z Challenge

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  11. I like the word void - it sounds so ominous. It's such a small word for such a huge idea :).
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

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