Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Total absence of matter; emptiness.
  • noun An empty space; a vacuum.
  • noun Total lack of ideas; emptiness of mind.
  • noun Absence of meaningful occupation; idleness.
  • noun The quality or fact of being devoid of something specified.
  • noun Something, especially a remark, that is pointless or inane.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being vacuous, empty, or unfilled; emptiness; vacancy; the state of being devoid or destitute of anything.
  • noun Space unfilled or unoccupied, or apparently unoccupied; a vacant space; also, a vacuum.
  • noun Want of reality; inanity; nihility.
  • noun Freedom from mental exertion; thoughtlessness; listlessness; idleness.
  • noun Lack of intelligence; stupidity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being vacuous, or not filled; emptiness; vacancy.
  • noun Space unfilled or unoccupied, or occupied with an invisible fluid only; emptiness; void; vacuum.
  • noun rare Want of reality; inanity; nihility.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Emptiness.
  • noun Physical emptiness, an absence of matter; vacuum.
  • noun Idleness.
  • noun An empty or inane remark or thing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the absence of matter
  • noun total lack of meaning or ideas
  • noun a region that is devoid of matter

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English vacuite, from Old French, from Latin vacuitās, from vacuus, empty; see vacuum.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin vacuitas.

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Examples

  • The operation of budding requires a good deal of nicety: first, to avoid wounding the wood of the stock in slitting the bark; and, secondly, to make the bark of the scion fit quite closely to the wood of the stock, as, if the least vacuity is left between them, the bud will wither instead of beginning to grow.

    The Lady's Country Companion: or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally Jane 1845

  • The length should be that of the bandaging; the breadth, three or four fingers; thickness, three or fourfold; number so as to encircle the limb, neither more nor less; those applied for the purpose of rectifying a deformity, should be of such a length as to encircle it; the breadth and thickness being determined by the vacuity, which is not to be filled up at once.

    On The Surgery 2007

  • It is in fact a negation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without the previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi termini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, prësupposes Something.

    Probabilities : An aid to Faith Martin Farquhar Tupper 1849

  • It is in fact a negation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without the previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi termini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, prësupposes Something.

    The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper Martin Farquhar Tupper 1849

  • It was a kind of vacuity, in which he wished for nothing and took no interest in anything, but only staggered along mechanically at the back of the bar.

    Pelle the Conqueror — Volume 01 Martin Andersen Nex�� 1911

  • It was a kind of vacuity, in which he wished for nothing and took no interest in anything, but only staggered along mechanically at the back of the bar.

    Pelle the Conqueror — Complete Martin Andersen Nex�� 1911

  • Will she be true to her 1995 self and candidly cut through the "vacuity" that rains down at these hearings?

    Politics Daily 2010

  • I suspect Kagan will tell any senator who asks that her comments 15 years ago were written in an academic vein, from the perspective of a curious legal scholar frustrated at having to endure the "vacuity" of confirmation hearings following the meltdown over the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1986.

    Politics Daily 2010

  • Whatever the balance between denominational separatism and ecumenical togetherness, between theological rigor and theological vacuity, America was clearly a very religious place in the 1950s.

    American Grace Robert D. Putnam 2010

  • The utter vacuity of this pompous pretence of philosophy leaves us breathless.

    Archive 2009-08-01 Hal Duncan 2009

Comments

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  • Desolate, Kelly Clarkson would mire in the vacuity of life

    April 18, 2009

  • Vacuity: va-kyoo-i-tee, vuh-

    noun, plural -ties.

    1. The state of being George W Bush

    2. George W Bush

    November 29, 2011