Learn English – the source of the expression “nothing at all”

phrase-origin

I'm looking for the source of the distinction between "nothing" and the nearly equivalent phrase "nothing at all." In common usage the two are synonymous, but the preposition "at all" seems to suggest a more nuanced logic: "Nothing," but a nothing coinciding in the place of "all." The latter speaks less to the negation of the presence something and more to the condition of a gap in a totality.

I've seen definitions of the Latin nil being equally "nothing" or "nothing at all;" if this is the case, I wonder when and where the equivocation comes from.

Best Answer

At all is simply an intensifying additional element without any inherent grammatical purpose, and is found in other contexts too, not just in the expression 'nothing at all':

Do you listen to what I tell you at all?

You don't seem at all interested in what I'm saying.

Have you studied for your exam at all?