vacuous
adjective
Did you know?
As you might have guessed, "vacuous" shares the same root as "vacuum"-the Latin adjective vacuus, meaning "empty." This root also gave us the noun "vacuity" (the oldest meaning of which is "an empty space") as well as the verb "evacuate" (originally meaning "to empty of contents"). Its predecessor, the verb "vacare," is also an ancestor of the words "vacation" and "vacancy" as well as "void." All of these words suggest an emptiness of space, or else a fleeing of people or things from one place to another. "Vacuous" appeared in English in the middle of the 17th century, at first literally describing something that was empty. It acquired its figurative usage, describing one who is lacking any substance of the mind, in the mid-1800s.
Examples of vacuous in a Sentence
Eve Chen, USA Today, 27 Mar. 2026
The restaurant is a no-frills affair, a vacuous space with fluorescent lights and vinyl flooring.
—Sean Timberlake, Sacbee.com, 6 Mar. 2026
Free-wheeling and overflowing with dopamine, the songs on Nondi… feel like electronic renderings of the vacuous promise of connection in digital society.
—Kiana Mickles, Pitchfork, 5 Mar. 2026
In some ways, that Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is this vacuous and one-dimensional feels like progress.
—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 21 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for vacuous
Cite this Entry
“Vacuous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vacuous. Accessed 5 Apr. 2026.
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