vacancy

American  

[vay-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

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Etymology

Origin of vacancy

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

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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

“That vacancy is where a lot of the value for the project will be derived,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

Analysis by commercial property firm CBRE, external found that while the vacancy rate across UK shopping centres in the second quarter of this year was 16%, it was "significantly lower" at major centres.

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026

When the White Sox first spoke with him about a managerial vacancy a couple of years earlier, they had assigned him a written test.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

Locate the policy, confirm it is active, notify the insurer, update the named insured and check those vacancy rules, it adds.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026

The vacancy was there, a hole in the air, a special kind of loneliness.

From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara

While the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9%, the number of vacancies and employees on payrolls fell in recent months.

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

Employees feel they have to get on board, thanks to the current state of the jobs market - in the UK, vacancies have hit a five-year low.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

The slowing flow of immigration is leaving home-care agencies, restaurants, and local governments racing to fill critical vacancies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

During the offseason, several teams interviewed Scheelhaase for head coaching vacancies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 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

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Related Words

• gap
• job
• vacuum
• void

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