vacuous

American  

[vak-yoo-uhs] / ˈvæk yu əs /

adjective

1. without contents; empty.

   the vacuous air.

2. lacking in ideas or intelligence.

   a vacuous mind.

3. expressing or characterized by a lack of ideas or intelligence; inane; stupid.

   a vacuous book.

4. purposeless; idle.

   a vacuous way of life.

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vacuous British  

/ ˈvækjʊəs /

adjective

1. containing nothing; empty

2. bereft of ideas or intelligence; mindless

3. characterized by or resulting from vacancy of mind

   a vacuous gaze

4. indulging in no useful mental or physical activity; idle

5. logic maths (of an operator or expression) having no import; idle: in (x) (John is tall) the quantifier (x) is vacuous

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Other Word Forms

• nonvacuous adjective
• nonvacuously adverb
• nonvacuousness noun
• unvacuous adjective
• unvacuously adverb
• unvacuousness noun
• vacuously adverb
• vacuousness noun

Etymology

Origin of vacuous

1645–55; from Latin vacuus “empty”; -ous

Explanation

Reserved for the harmlessly stupid and truly meaningless, vacuous is a smart-sounding way to describe something dumb. Celebrity gossip and reality TV are usually pretty vacuous, even if they're fun. If someone smiles at you in a way that seems fake or empty, you could describe the smile as vacuous. An example of a vacuous comment would be a politician promising to make things better without explaining how. If something is vacuous, it's like a vacuum — hollow, empty, devoid of substance.

Example Sentences

The few other highlights in the show are overwhelmed by a surfeit of lifeless abstractions, eye-glazing prints and vacuous conceptual works.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026

Instead it sent him on empty assignments, like meandering the vacuous desert sprawl.

From Slate • Feb. 2, 2026

As for the music itself, while it was enough to convince some fans, the lack of actual human creative input made it sound "vacuous and pristine", she says.

From BBC • Aug. 22, 2025

For Lamar, the decadelong rap battle stems from his lifelong disdain for gangster cosplay and the vacuous monetizing of Black culture.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2025

I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile—the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please, and I realized what I had recognized in him.

From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes