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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
vacuous
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
vacuous cocktail-party conversation
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Far from being vacuous storytelling, myth in its true sense is a communion with the deepest truths of existence.
▪ In a more reflective mood, the Marxist explanation turned out to be almost vacuous, in detail.
▪ Some kind of comparison outside the text or corpus is necessary, otherwise statements of frequency are vacuous.
▪ Sure, he delivered a vacuous inaugural speech.
▪ Unfortunately, while superficially attractive, those context-independent truth criteria which have been suggested turn out to be vacuous or tautological.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Vacuous

Vacuous \Vac"u*ous\, a. [L. vacuus. See Vacant.] Empty; unfilled; void; vacant.

Boundless the deep, because I am who fill Infinitude; nor vacuous the space.
--Milton.

That the few may lead selfish and vacuous days.
--J. Morley.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
vacuous

1640s, "empty" (implied in vacuousness), from Latin vacuus "empty, void, free" (see vacuum (n.)). Figurative sense of "empty of ideas, without intelligent expression" is from 1848. Related: Vacuously.

Wiktionary
vacuous

a. 1 Lacking meaningful content. 2 Showing a lack of thought or intelligence; vacant

WordNet
vacuous
  1. adj. complacently or inanely foolish [syn: asinine, fatuous, inane, mindless]

  2. devoid of significance or point; "empty promises"; "a hollow victory"; "vacuous comments" [syn: empty, hollow]

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "vacuous".

A few men looked serenely comfortable-Catulus, Hortensius, Lepidus-and some looked terrified-a Flaccus or two, a Fimbria, a minor Carbo-but most bore the look of sheep, vacuous yet skittish.

To be compelled, at such a time, to lie around in vacuous idleness-- to spend days that should be crowded full of action in a monotonous, objectless routine of hunting lice, gathering at roll-call, and drawing and cooking our scanty rations, was torturing.

All the yakkers sounded off, speculation ran wild: Denver was treated to the usual tasteless nonsense from vacuous morons with too much time on their hands.

But above the sagging misformed mouth the eyes very pale and rather prominent, never changed their expression, an intense stare, almost, but not quite, vacuous.

To be compelled, at such a time, to lie around in vacuous idleness-- to spend days that should be crowded full of action in a monotonous, objectless routine of hunting lice, gathering at roll-call, and drawing and cooking our scanty rations, was torturing.

Barmby had thought vacuous, beseeming little girls, that laugh at nothings.

It seemed to be a typical bandmostly young people, their faces ranging in expression from the timid optimism of the new recruit through the sunny confidence of those who, like the girl that had snagged him, had been with the faith for a while, to the vacuous inattention of a couple of long time communicants, on whose faces the obligatory smile sat like a welcome mat in front of an abandoned house.

Yet language, like a virus or like capital, is in itself entirely vacuous: its supposed content is only a contingent means (the host cell or the particular commodity form) that it parasitically appropriates for the end of self-valorization and self-proliferation.

It was that kind of vacuous sentimentality which had allowed the powers of the jungle to grow strong that perverse broadmindedness which insisted on acknowledging every argument for the other side while discounting all the irrefutable evidence on its own side, which strained every nerve to make excuses for a murderer while it pigeonholed the sufferings of the victims who did not need any excuse.

Unswerving and obedient to the foul legate's orders, that hellish bird plunged onward through shoals of shapeless lurkers and caperers in darkness, and vacuous herds of drifting entities that pawed and groped and groped and pawed.

The Drusus cruised along according to plan in its prescribed area, which was a particularly vacuous region of space, 45 light-years distant from the blue dwarf star Vollaal.