nix

the word 'nix' entered english in the late 18th century as a colloquialism, borrowed directly from the german slang 'nichts', meaning 'nothing'. german 'nichts' itself evolved from middle high german 'niht', which is a contraction of 'ni' (not) and 'wiht' (thing, creature), tracing back to proto-germanic roots. the semantic journey is straightforward: from the concrete concept of 'not a thing' in old germanic, it became a slang term for 'nothing' in german, which english then adopted. in american english, it further verbalized in the late 19th century, taking on the active sense of 'to cancel' or 'to veto', logically extending from declaring something to be worth nothing.

this word is a simplex loanword from german. it does not contain separable morphemes within its modern english spelling.