vacancy

American  

[vey-kuhn-see] / ˈveɪ kən si /

noun

vacancies plural

1. the state of being vacant; emptiness.

2. a vacant, empty, or unoccupied place, as untenanted lodgings or offices.

   This building still has no vacancies.

3. a gap; opening; breach.

4. an unoccupied position or office.

   a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

5. lack of thought or intelligence; vacuity.

   a look of utter vacancy.

6. Crystallography. (in a crystal) an imperfection resulting from an unoccupied lattice position.

7. Archaic. absence of activity; idleness.

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vacancy British  

/ ˈveɪkənsɪ /

noun

1. the state or condition of being vacant or unoccupied; emptiness

2. an unoccupied post or office

   we have a vacancy in the accounts department

3. an unoccupied room in a boarding house, hotel, etc

   put the "No Vacancies" sign in the window

4. lack of thought or intelligent awareness; inanity

   an expression of vacancy on one's face

5. physics a defect in a crystalline solid caused by the absence of an atom, ion, or molecule from its position in the crystal lattice

6. obsolete idleness or a period spent in idleness

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonvacancy
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• vacancies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of vacancy

From the Medieval Latin word vacantia, dating back to 1570–80. See vacant, -ancy

Explanation

Vacancy refers to something being unoccupied. If a hotel has vacancies, there are rooms available. Have you ever noticed a store that's boarded up and empty, with signs like "For sale" or "For rent"? That's an example of vacancy: the store has no one in it. An unrented apartment is a vacancy, as is a house with no one living in it. Hotels put up a sign saying "No vacancies" when they have every room filled. It could help you remember what vacancy means if you know that a vacant lot is an empty lot.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vacancy vacancies

In the aftermath of Labour's defeat in that year's general election, he contested the vacancy left by Gordon Brown.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

Oringel, who is 85 and lives in town, finds the long vacancy distressing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

The proposed constitutional amendment would also allow the recalled politician to run in the next election to fill the vacancy, though they cannot be appointed to their former post.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026

Housing industry experts consider 5% vacancy to be a baseline for ordinary turnover.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026

Those who sought his views were advised to wander into his vicinity as if by accident and to "talk as it were into vacancy."

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

For years, vacancies rendered the agency unable to perform major parts of its work, contributing to long delays in updating voting-system guidance.

From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026

He believes there are enough vacancies at the low end of the housing market to make a sizable dent in homelessness without new construction.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

Allianz said it was looking for opportunities for employees to fill other vacancies or get reskilled.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026

But there would be plenty of vacancies if she came back in two days, an employee added.

From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026

Not a year after the end of the war, the familiar announcements of vacancies at the laboratory, including openings for computers, began to appear in the newsletter again.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

Related Words

• gap
• job
• vacuum
• void