Vacuous

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈvækju.əs/

Definitions

1. Lacking intelligence, substance, or meaningful content; empty-minded or purposeless
2. Having no real meaning or value and displaying a void of ideas ; demonstrating a lack of intelligence or deep thought
3. Empty of meaningful content and showing an absence of intellectual depth ; revealing a failure to think seriously or carefully

Etymology: Latin "vacuus" meant "empty" or "vacant," and it is the root from which English gets "vacuum," a word for a space with nothing in it. "Vacuous" took the same Latin base and added the English suffix "-ous," which turns a noun into an adjective meaning "full of" or "characterised by." So a vacuous thing is, in the literal sense, full of emptiness. The shift from physical emptiness to mental emptiness is what gives the word its modern bite. A vacuous room is bare; a vacuous expression or remark is one in which nothing seems to be going on behind it. The word moved from describing space to describing minds and statements, so that a speech can now be called vacuous when it contains no real content.

Synonyms: empty, void, hollow

Antonyms: full, meaningful