nullity

By rendering the subpoena a nullity, McElroy left O’Connor nothing to enforce, making his earlier order toothless.

From Slate ● May 19, 2026

In the process of conversion, however, she’s reduced to a nullity with a grating personal manner.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2024

But although what she could do is say, "OK, well if you said that me dropping the charges were a nullity, I'm just going to drop them again."

From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2023

A city that could imagine its own improbable existence into reality could just as easily relegate this now-inconvenient natural feature into a nullity or a comedian’s gag.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2022

The agreeable nullity of Leon’s life was a polished artifact, its ease deceptive, its limitations achieved by invisible hard work and the accidents of character, none of which she could hope to rival.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

For he held that it had from the beginning been an unlawful assembly, that all its resolutions were nullities, and that the Sovereigns whom it had set up were usurpers.

From The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay

The usurpations and acts of the rebels were considered not legal acts, but nullities.

From The Galaxy Vol. 23, No. 1 by Various

But I leave the glory of photographing nullities to the geniuses of the age, and run to the first words which could, without impiety, be called dialogue.

From A Woman-Hater by Charles Reade

Never forget," said he in an address to the Assembly, "that laws are mere nullities without the necessary force to sustain them.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol 1-98, 1850-1899 None by Various (magazine) Harper

These historical characters are not mere shadows, puppets, or nullities, but very real men and women, our own flesh and blood.

From Without Dogma by Henryk Sienkiewicz