|
vacuous: msg#00006culture.language.word-of-the-day
***************************************************************** Discover the people and events that made history ON THIS DAY. Sign up for the free daily newsletter from Britannica. http://register.britannica.com/mailinglist ***************************************************************** The Word of the Day for September 7 is: vacuous \VAK-yuh-wus\ adjective 1 : emptied of or lacking content *2 : marked by lack of ideas or intelligence : stupid, inane 3 : devoid of serious occupation : idle Example sentence: Alyssa was told that her blind date was well-read and articulate, so she was disappointed to discover that he was a vacuous bore. Did you know? As you might have guessed, "vacuous" shares the same root as "vacuum" -- the Latin adjective "vacuus," meaning "empty." This root also gave us the noun "vacuity" (the oldest meaning of which is "an empty space") as well as the verb "evacuate" (originally "to remove the contents of; empty"). Its predecessor, the verb "vacare," is also an ancestor of the words "vacation" and "vacancy" as well as "void." All of these words suggest an emptiness of space, or else a fleeing of people or things from one place to another. "Vacuous" first appeared in English in the middle of the 17th century, literally describing something that was empty, but then acquired its figurative usage, describing one who is lacking any substance of the mind, in the mid-1800s. *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. |
|
| <Prev in Thread] | Current Thread | [Next in Thread> |
|---|---|---|
| Previous by Date: | travail: 00006, word |
|---|---|
| Next by Date: | divers: 00006, word |
| Previous by Thread: | travaili: 00006, word |
| Next by Thread: | divers: 00006, word |
| Indexes: | [Date] [Thread] [Top] [All Lists] |
| News | FAQ | advertise |