nullify

From null +‎ -ify.

• IPA^(key): /ˈnʌlɪfaɪ/

• Audio (US):

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nullify (third-person singular simple present nullifies, present participle nullifying, simple past and past participle nullified)

1. (transitive, law) To make legally invalid.

   Near-synonyms: cancel, void

   The contract has been nullified.

   • 1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 37:

     hey were baffled by tears in moustached sixth-formers, by walls of impassivity in the Lower School, by silent conspiracies which nullified the rules.

   • 1992 May 8, Tamara Severns, “Open Letter To Michigan Festival Organizers”, in Gay Community News, page 4:

     Lesbians for Justice therefore appeals to the organizers of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival to nullify its "womyn-born-womyn only" policy, and to allow the attendance of post-operative male-to-female transsexuals at all future festivals.

2. To prevent from happening.
3. To make of no use or value; to cancel out.
   • 1843, The Metropolitan - Volume 36, page 52:

     The persuasion that a thing is impossible, at once nullifies endeavour, and like the Turkish "it is fate," torporises activity and exertion.

   • 1966, Popular Mechanics, volume 125, number 2, page 115:

     Blowproof water has given the Navy the weapon it needed to fight fires with helicopters. Previously, the downwash from the rotor blades blew the foam, or whatever agent was being used, off the fire, nullifying its effect.

   • 1983, Men At Work, “Overkill”, in Cargo:

     It nullifies the night / from overkill

• (to make legally invalid): annul, cancel