Zilch means absolutely nothing, zero, not a single thing. If you checked your piggy bank hoping to buy a candy bar and found zilch, you're completely broke. If you studied the wrong chapter for a test and knew zilch about the actual questions, you didn't know anything useful at all.

The word adds emphasis beyond just saying “nothing.” It's the difference between “I have nothing in my pocket” and “I have zilch in my pocket.” The second version sounds more dramatic and complete, like you've checked every corner and found absolutely zero.

You might say you accomplished zilch on a lazy Saturday, or that your team's chances of winning are zilch after falling behind by twenty points. Unlike similar words like nada (from Spanish) or zip, which feel casual and breezy, zilch has a slightly harsher sound that matches its meaning: total emptiness, complete absence, not even a tiny bit of something.