vacuous
[ vak-yoo-uh s ]
/ ˈvæk yu əs /
adjective
without contents; empty: the vacuous air.
lacking in ideas or intelligence: a vacuous mind.
expressing or characterized by a lack of ideas or intelligence; inane; stupid: a vacuous book.
purposeless; idle: a vacuous way of life.
RELATED WORDS
blank, drained, dull, dumb, foolish, half-baked, inane, minus, shallow, silly, stupid, superficial, vacant, void, uncomprehending, airheaded, birdbrained, emptied, lamebrained, unreasoning
Nearby words
vacuity, vacuolate, vacuolated, vacuolation, vacuole, vacuous, vacuously, vacutome, vacuum, vacuum activity, vacuum aspiration
Origin of vacuous
Related forms
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for vacuous
British Dictionary definitions for vacuous
vacuous
/ (ˈvækjʊəs) /
adjective
containing nothing; empty
bereft of ideas or intelligence; mindless
characterized by or resulting from vacancy of minda vacuous gaze
indulging in no useful mental or physical activity; idle
logic maths (of an operator or expression) having no import; idle: in (x) (John is tall) the quantifier (x) is vacuous
Derived Formsvacuously, adverbvacuousness, noun
Word Origin for vacuous
C17: from Latin vacuus empty, from vacāre to be empty
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for vacuous
vacuous
1640s, "empty," from Latin vacuus "empty, void, free" (see vacuum). Figurative sense of "empty of ideas" is from 1848. Related: Vacuously; vacuousness.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper