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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
vacant
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a blank/vacant expression (=one that shows no emotion, understanding, or interest)
▪ The blank expression on Bobbie’s face gave way to anger.
a vacant stare (=seeming not to notice or be thinking anything)
▪ She was gazing out of the window with a vacant stare.
an empty/vacant seat
▪ Patrick spotted an empty seat near the back.
vacant lot (=empty land)
▪ the vacant lot behind the Commercial Hotel
vacant possession
vacant/derelictBritish English (= unused)
▪ The houses could be built on derelict land.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
expression
▪ The maid's vacant expression was replaced momentarily by one of greedy expectation - shortly followed by disappointment.
▪ He was a bright-eyed boy, thin and fair, with a vacant expression that often gave way to shrill laughter.
▪ However, just behind the vacant expression he offered me, I detected fear.
house
▪ And there was a vacant house in the Lossie Estate, almost next door to where they lived.
▪ Punta Banda's ghostly streets, vacant houses and shuttered hotel bear testimony to dreams gone sour.
▪ The survey report points out that both of these estimates included vacant houses and are not comparable with the latest figure.
land
▪ Much more interesting are the larger complexes which occupy the vacant land immediately behind the main frontages.
▪ The city is in the final stages of annexing a 28-mile swath of vacant land south of town.
▪ Public- and private-sector users were both reluctant to put vacant land on the market.
▪ In many cities, most vacant land was not owned by local government but by the private sector and statutory authorities.
▪ Kenski points to Prop 105, a referendum which exempted vacant land owned by cemeteries from taxation.
▪ Only six percent of the vacant land had been landscaped and maintained.
lot
▪ Woke up to hear bulldozers Rumble through vacant lots, Saw houseplants we forgot to water Shrivelled in their pots.
▪ We stood in the vacant lot, which was still a vacant lot, where the three tramps were found.
▪ He'd even searched the vacant lots.
▪ We stood in the vacant lot, which was still a vacant lot, where the three tramps were found.
▪ Sanitation: A special task force shall be assigned to clean up all vacant lots and trashed areas throughout the deprived areas.
▪ At 11 p. m., he said, a man telephoned his room, and together they drove to a vacant lot.
▪ On our march we camped one night in a vacant lot adjoining a female seminary at Gordonsville.
▪ Broughton said the codes would make it simpler to build on small hillside vacant lots in older developed neighborhoods.
possession
▪ Virtually all empty dwellings were now sold with vacant possession, at extremely high prices.
▪ Where properties are untenanted, Retirement Assured has valued them at open market value with vacant possession.
▪ And of course for that, you do get vacant possession.
▪ People who sell will want to sell with vacant possession, and that means asking people to leave.
▪ Would you have to pay income tax on it, and could you get vacant possession when you needed it?
▪ They think it unlikely that the company would sell the properties without vacant possession.
post
▪ He said there would be no enforced redundancies, but some vacant posts would remain unfilled.
▪ Clinton has appointed three successors to the vacant posts.
▪ As you will see from the Who's who page we have two vacant posts on the committee.
▪ No replacement has yet been sought; or found for the vacant post of Chief Executive.
▪ At the moment half a dozen vacant posts are filled a year.
▪ They became close friends, and when Arnet died in 1728 Hooper applied for the vacant post.
▪ Instead of filling the directly vacant post, staff can be moved round, and the resulting vacancy filled.
property
▪ Rate bills are the occupier's responsibility, or, in the case of vacant property, the person entitled to occupation.
▪ No housing department had a policy on identifying vacant properties with adaptation potential.
▪ According to Barber White, a firm of property researchers, there are about 11m square feet of vacant property in the City.
seat
▪ His vacant seat on the panel was filled, naturally enough, by William Harrison.
▪ She pointed to a vacant seat which was at the end of a row near the gangway.
site
▪ Discussion took place regarding the vacant site adjacent to the Railway Inn.
space
▪ Robert sat at a vacant space and put his head in his hands.
▪ It has begun tracing lines, through totally vacant space, between recurrences.
▪ And she was even more impressed as he recalled opening the shoebox, with its matching glass decorations and its vacant space.
▪ And they began looking at how to make the most of the small vacant spaces.
▪ Etta Moon, 67, stood before the vacant space that was once her home.
stare
▪ Eyes downcast; baby lips pulled into a frown; dull, vacant stare.
▪ Brittany, the blond cheerleader, has a vacant stare and huge eyelashes.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
house/flat with vacant possession
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Brunton went into the bar, but he couldn't spot a single vacant seat.
▪ Half of the apartments in the building are vacant.
▪ He applied for the job of Eliot's personal secretary, which had just fallen vacant.
▪ If you're looking for somewhere to rent, I think there's a vacant apartment in my building.
▪ Of the buildings the company owns, only 3% are vacant.
▪ Our company only has one or two vacant positions at the moment.
▪ The next guesthouse we tried had a couple of rooms vacant.
▪ The police had set up a temporary station in a vacant apartment across the street.
▪ There don't seem to be any vacant rooms in the whole of London!
▪ When the post became vacant it was offered to Wendy Brooks.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Clinton has appointed three successors to the vacant posts.
▪ During the 1870s agricultural depression had led to land and even rural jobs lying vacant.
▪ He said there would be no enforced redundancies, but some vacant posts would remain unfilled.
▪ It was the elder Gough who founded the Marin Weightlifting Club and relocated it to the vacant machine shop in 1990.
▪ She stared back at him, more vacant and stupid than he had ever seen her.
▪ The flat above was reserved for some sort of company letting and was, at present, vacant.
▪ Then the station you left hires some one to fill your vacant slot.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Vacant

Vacant \Va"cant\, a. [F., fr. L. vacans, -antis, p. pr. of vacare to be empty, to be free or unoccupied, to have leisure, also vocare; akin to vacuus empty, and probably to E. void. Cf. Evacuate, Void, a.]

  1. Deprived of contents; not filled; empty; as, a vacant room.

    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.
    --Shak.

    Being of those virtues vacant.
    --Shak.

    There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair.
    --Longfellow.

  2. Unengaged with business or care; unemployed; unoccupied; disengaged; free; as, vacant hours.

    Religion is the interest of all; but philosophy of those . . . at leisure, and vacant from the affairs of the world.
    --Dr. H. More.

    There was not a minute of the day which he left vacant.
    --Bp. Fell.

  3. Not filled or occupied by an incumbent, possessor, or officer; unoccupied; as, a vacant throne; a vacant house; a vacant apartment; a vacant parish.

    Special dignities which vacant lie For thy best use and wearing.
    --Shak.

  4. Empty of thought; thoughtless; not occupied with study or reflection; as, a vacant mind.

    The duke had a pleasant and vacant face.
    --Sir H. Wotton.

    When on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood.
    --Wordsworth.

  5. (Law) Abandoned; having no heir, possessor, claimant, or occupier; as, a vacant estate.
    --Bouvier.

    Vacant succession (Law), one that is claimed by no person, or where all the heirs are unknown, or where all the known heirs to it have renounced it.
    --Burrill.

    Syn: Empty; void; devoid; free; unemployed; disengaged; unincumbered; uncrowded; idle.

    Usage: Vacant, Empty. A thing is empty when there is nothing in it; as, an empty room, or an empty noddle. Vacant adds the idea of having been previously filled, or intended to be filled or occupied; as, a vacant seat at table; a vacant office; vacant hours. When we speak of a vacant look or a vacant mind, we imply the absence of the intelligence naturally to be expected there.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
vacant

c.1300, "not filled, held, or occupied," from Old French vacant "idle, unoccupied" (of an office, etc.), from Latin vacantem (nominative vacans), "empty, unoccupied," present participle of vacare "to be empty" (see vain). Meaning "characterized by absence of mental occupation" is from 1570s. Related: Vacantly.

Wiktionary
vacant

a. 1 Not occupied; empty. 2 Showing no intelligence or interest.

WordNet
vacant
  1. adj. void of thought or knowledge; "a vacant mind"

  2. without an occupant or incumbent; "the throne is never vacant"

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "vacant".

Beside the cushion was a vacant throne, radiant as morning in the East, ablaze with devices in gold and gems, a seat to fill the meanest soul with sensations of majesty and tempt dervishes to the sitting posture.

Gradually, the French became more and more intransigent and this climaxed in 1292 when the papal throne became vacant and the French and Italian factions in the College of Cardinals cancelled each other out to the extent that they wrangled for two years without reaching agreement: no candidate achieved the required two-thirds majority.

The youth nodded a greeting and Ager returned the favor, noting there were plenty of vacant tables around.

The eyes were dark but vacant, and the face had no other expression than that look of apathetic melancholy which one sometimes sees on the faces of captive beasts.

Be it yours if it suffice you not to have already seized an archbishopric, six vacant sees, and many abbeys, to the peril of your soul, and turned to secular uses the alms of your fathers, of pious kings, the patrimony of Jesus Christ!

The election of Carus was decided without expecting the approbation of the senate, and the new emperor contented himself with announcing, in a cold and stately epistle, that he had ascended the vacant throne.

Curio as tribune of the plebs, hurrying from Gaul, sent ahead and registered as a candidate for the vacant augurship of Quintus Hortensius.

But Brye, it seemed, had always liked obscure districts, and it was likely that he had an address book of unusual places that were vacant.

The list was now proclaimed to be full, and the gondolas were towed off, as before, towards the starting point, leaving the place beneath the stern of the Bucentaur, vacant.

Friday morning, as Dinny entered the rapidly filling classroom of Professor Grover, and looked about for a vacant chair, the long arm and beckoning fingers of Barney Vaughn summoned him to a seat in the back row, where he was received with friendly smiles.

The man on the stepladder should have been grateful as, apart from a few released secretaries and their lovers who paused for a moment on their way to a vacant patch of grass and then walked on, quite uninterested in the end of the world, Dunster and I were his only audience.

I trust Sir Francis Vere will appoint you to the first ensigncy vacant in his companies, but should there be likely to be any delay in this I will gladly give you a commission in one of my own regiments.

Hence, the feudal baron is invested with his fief by the suzerain, holds it from him, and to him it escheats when forfeited or vacant.

The resulting inburst of people and associated industries filled every vacant space and continued the sprawl farther.

Who has not welcomed, even as we, That jocund minstrel and his lays Beside the idle summer sea And in the vacant summer days?