Nil

6 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Nil \Nil\ [See {Nill}, v. t.]
     Will not. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  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.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Nil \Nil\, n. (computers)
     A special value for a variable used in certain computer
     languages to mean no assigned value, to be distinguished from
     the value zero.
     [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  nil
       n : 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" [syn: {nothing},
            {nix}, {nada}, {null}, {aught}, {cipher}, {cypher}, {goose
           egg}, {naught}, {zero}, {zilch}, {zip}]

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  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.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  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.
       
          [{Jargon File}]