/dev/null

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. A device file, present in Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, that discards all data written to it and yields no output, always being as an empty file when read.
  2. Nowhere; often suggests an intent to ignore specific correspondence.

Word forms

/dev/null dev null dev-null devnull

Etymology

From Unix operating systems, where /dev (the Unix directory containing device files) contains a null entry representing no device.

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