I have always taken it to mean absent. Here are four cases in the C language that matches to this use of absent

• R f(void) - Function parameters are absent
• void f(P) - Return value is absent
• void *p - Type of what is pointed to is absent
• (void) p - Usage of value is absent

Other C descendants use it for other things. The D programming language uses it for cases where an initializer is absent

• T t = void; - initializing value is absent

Let's compare it with a real life scenario.If you ask someone to write their name on a piece of paper and hand you the note with their name written on it, that would be the equivelant of a string return type. If you tell someone to write down their name on a piece of paper but keep it to themselves, that would be void. It's simply you telling a method to do something which will not result in it returning anything to you.

Many times, you will have calls in main to other methods that need to return information - such as a number. When this happens, you would have int for that method (like int methodName). For the case of void, you are essentially saying to return nothing from that method. Normally, this happens for one-off actions (such as broadcasting a message) not needing a response. Their use depends on how you structure your logic. If everything is contained within the one method, there would be no need for a return. In that case, use void. Otherwise, if you want to use that returned information (int, char, etc.), you need to set that as the method's return type (the void or int (etc) before main, in your question).

Void basically means "no type", "no value" or "empty". Void is most commonly used in functions and methods. If you have worked with functions before, this might help you understand better: java\main.java functions f = new functions(); String message = "Hello world!"; f.print_func(message); java\functions.java public void print_func(String var) { System.out.println(var); } In our main class we make a string with the value "Hello world!" and then call the function print_func with that message as the argument. The function takes the argument and prints it out and returns nothing back to the main class because there is nothing that functions calculated or created -- it just printed a message to the user. This is why we declared our function as a void -- it passes nothing back to it's caller once it's finished running. An example where void shouldn't be used: java\main.java functions f = new functions(); int number = 5; int new_number = 0; new_number = f.calc_func(number); System.out.println(new_number); java\functions.java public int calc_func(int var) { int new_number = var * 2; return new_number; } In this example, our function takes a number (in this case the number "5") and calculates it's double (5 x 2 = 10 in this example). Once the function has completed this calculation, our main class needs to know what was calculated, so the function needs to return this value back to it's caller. The main class get's the value and stores it in new_number which is then printed out to the user. So whenever you create a function or method in java, you need to tell java the type that is being returned (int, String, etc). If nothing is returned, then you need to tell this by using void where applicable. Void can also be used as a pointer for unknown types, but that's a bit advanced. Hope this helps! :)