‘It is a series of numbers, hyphens, naughts, strokes, and zeds.’
‘Ryan was just hysterically laughing, asking how it was a twenty-one year old could lose to a five year old child in naughts and crosses.’
‘Those naughts and ones are then what we call modulated, or carried if you like, as a passenger on a radio frequency signal.’
‘In reciprocation, however, he got a big naught.’
‘Or maybe they forgot to put a extra naught on the end of the figure they offered.’
‘From zero to naught, I cannot be free of this thought, inside my head,’
Phrases
bring to naught archaic
Ruin or foil.
‘All of the divisions of Us, predicated upon the beast within, are brought to naught.’
‘In 1989, courageous people brought to naught the Berlin Wall.’
‘Such recommendations will only bring to naught efforts to increase cooperation and decrease politicization among States.’
set at naught archaic
Disregard or despise.
‘your efforts are set at naught by those beneath you’
‘It only helps to be able to lock people up without trial if you know who they are - if you don't, your strategy is set at naught.’
‘In the other case the Court will not allow its process to be set at naught and treated with contempt.’
‘In this way a party who is in breach of the contract will be able to set at naught an exclusive jurisdiction agreement which is the product of the free will of the parties.’
‘The fact of the matter is that rising inflation is setting at naught the modest gains in take-home pay granted through tax reform and income rises.’
‘It is not easy to trace the motives of the reformers or their inheritors as they gradually set at naught large elements of symbol in worship.’
come to naught archaic
Be ruined or foiled.
‘his hopes of becoming commissioner have come to naught’
‘Everything he tries with the boy comes to naught!’
‘He said unless the boxers worked on their fighting skills, the quest for effective competition and excellence on the international scene would come to naught.’
‘All the extravagant statements come to naught.’
‘Hopes were then pinned on the disciplinary investigation of 20 senior officials - which has come to naught.’
‘Now it seems all their efforts have come to naught.’
‘Yet all will come to naught without international political, administrative and financial support on an unprecedented scale.’
‘Attempts so far to forge a compromise have come to naught, leaving the upcoming session disturbingly unsettled.’
‘I believe all this arguing and toing and froing will come to naught in the end.’
‘Many years of work and negotiations came to naught.’
‘My attempts to raise money in France and Germany have come to naught.’
Origin
Old English nāwiht, -wuht, from nā ‘no’ + wiht ‘thing’ (see wight).
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