EMPTINESS

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does emptiness mean? 

• EMPTINESS (noun)
  The noun EMPTINESS has 4 senses:

1. the state of containing nothing

2. having an empty stomach

3. an empty area or space

4. the quality of being valueless or futile

  Familiarity information: EMPTINESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMPTINESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of containing nothing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("emptiness" is a kind of...):

condition; status (a state at a particular time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "emptiness"):

blankness (the state of being blank; void; emptiness)

hollowness (the state of being hollow: having an empty space within)

vacancy (being unoccupied)

vacuity; vacuum (the absence of matter)

Antonym:

fullness (the condition of being filled to capacity)

Derivation:

empty (holding or containing nothing)

empty (emptied of emotion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having an empty stomach

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("emptiness" is a kind of...):

hunger; hungriness (a physiological need for food; the consequence of food deprivation)

Derivation:

empty (needing nourishment)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An empty area or space

Classified under:

Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes

Synonyms:

emptiness; vacancy; vacuum; void

Context example:

without their support he'll be ruling in a vacuum

Hypernyms ("emptiness" is a kind of...):

space (an empty area (usually bounded in some way between things))

Sense 4

Meaning:

The quality of being valueless or futile

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

emptiness; vanity

Context example:

he rejected the vanities of the world

Hypernyms ("emptiness" is a kind of...):

ineptitude; worthlessness (having no qualities that would render it valuable or useful)

Derivation:

empty (devoid of significance or force)

 Context examples 

Your stomach is full with emptiness through the days, and it is for a man of a very miserable and lying people to give you to eat.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But when away from his god, the pain and the unrest returned; the void in him sprang up and pressed against him with its emptiness, and the hunger gnawed and gnawed unceasingly.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

But while she wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that the emptiness of conceit of the one, put her out of all charity with the modesty and worth of the other.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

They were good and kindly people, he forced himself to acknowledge, and in the moment of acknowledgment he qualified—good and kindly like all the bourgeoisie, with all the psychological cramp and intellectual futility of their kind, they bored him when they talked with him, their little superficial minds were so filled with emptiness; while the boisterous high spirits and the excessive energy of the younger people shocked him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared, so that each rib and every bone in his frame were outlined cleanly through the loose hide that was wrinkled in folds of emptiness.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He fought it off for hours, then threw his rifle open and was confronted with emptiness.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)