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empty

[emp-tee]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

containing nothing; having none of the usual or appropriate contents: an empty bottle.

vacant; unoccupied: an empty house.

without cargo or load: an empty wagon.

destitute of people or human activity: We walked along the empty streets of the city at night.

destitute of some quality or qualities; devoid (usually followed by of): Theirs is a life now empty of happiness.

EXPAND

without force, effect, or significance; hollow; meaningless: empty compliments; empty pleasures.

not employed in useful activity or work; idle: empty summer days.

Mathematics. (of a set) containing no elements; null; void.

hungry: I'm feeling rather empty—let's have lunch.

10.

without knowledge or sense; frivolous; foolish: an empty head.

11.

completely spent of emotion: The experience had left him with an empty heart.

COLLAPSE

verb (used with object)

12.

to make empty; deprive of contents; discharge the contents of: to empty a bucket.

13.

to discharge (contents): to empty the water out of a bucket.

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Empty is always a great word to know.

So is graph. Does it mean:

a number that is a multiple of all the numbers of a given set

a series of points as in forming a curve or surface, each of which represents a value of a given function, a network of lines connecting points

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verb (used without object)

14.

to become empty: The room emptied rapidly after the lecture.

15.

to discharge contents, as a river: The river empties into the sea.

noun

16.

Informal. something that is empty, as a box, bottle, or can: Throw the empties into the waste bin.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English (with intrusive -p-); Old English ǣmettig vacant (ǣmett(a) leisure (ǣ- a-³ + Germanic *mōtithō accommodation; compare must¹, meet¹) + -ig -y¹)

Related forms

emp·ti·a·ble, adjective

emp·ti·er, noun

emp·ti·ly, adverb

emp·ti·ness, noun

o·ver·emp·ty, adjective

EXPAND

qua·si-emp·ty, adjective

self-emp·ti·ness, noun

self-emp·ty·ing, adjective

un·emp·tied, adjective

un·emp·ty, adjective

COLLAPSE

Synonyms
1. vacuous. Empty, vacant, blank, void denote absence of content or contents. Empty means without appropriate or accustomed contents: an empty refrigerator. Vacant is usually applied to that which is temporarily unoccupied: a vacant chair; three vacant apartments. Blank applies to surfaces free from any marks or lacking appropriate markings, openings, etc.: blank paper; a blank wall. Void emphasizes completely unfilled space with vague, unspecified, or no boundaries: void and without form. 6. delusive, vain. 12. unload, unburden.

Antonyms
1. full.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To empty

Example Sentences

Then he opened a lottery, sold a thousand tickets, and handed out the empty bottles as prizes.

If he fails to turn up, he risks being represented by an empty chair.

Some satiated caterpillars then attach the empty snail shells onto their speckled casings.

EXPAND

Then he opened a lottery, sold a thousand tickets, and handed out the empty bottles as prizes.

If he fails to turn up, he risks being represented by an empty chair.

Some satiated caterpillars then attach the empty snail shells onto their speckled casings.

Some offerings contain inedible plant seeds or empty insect exoskeletons.

The children come running as soon as the boat pushes onto the riverbank, mooring next to empty handmade fish traps.

Put this in the empty section to catch the fat as it melts, preventing flare-ups.

Rebok picked up the canister, only to find that it was heavier than an empty canister would be.

At some point, the newly homeless millions may well look at newly foreclosed, empty houses and take what they need.

According to quantum mechanics, empty space is anything but empty.

Most city skies have become virtually empty of stars.

What is called evaporation leaves an empty six pole or six sided wax structure.

Use an empty shell to tweeze out the rest of the mussels.

Either it's tasteless or it leaves you feeling empty.

Apple's iPhone springboard automatically shifts icons to fill an empty spot to keep rows in order.

Here in a converted barn, their nameplates were hung outside empty offices that once belonged to residential faculty members.

Mobile-phone operators and other would-be users of wireless spectrum have long lusted after television's empty airwaves.

Light travels in a straight line through empty space, but when it bumps into an object, it changes direction.

During a particularly harsh winter, a polar bear breaks into one of the igloos and starts wandering through the empty complex.

Lupines are not typically thought of as plants that colonize the middle of an empty landscape.

Other eye-catching options: shapely boulders, a piece of garden art, or a cluster of empty olive jugs.

The promise of a fantastic payoff, followed by an empty death.

Porters steered their empty luggage carts in my direction, gesturing at my suitcases.

But the epidemic is making millions too weak to grow enough food, and too weak to survive with empty stomachs.

Most fjords are deeper than the coastal sea into which they empty.

We tried to buy a map in the area, but no stores/gas stations were open…streets were empty.

Tip the mower-now empty of gas and oil-up on its side and hose it clean.

As you stare out across the landscape, there is nothing but empty ugliness.

Opie captures the empty dirt where tens of thousands of people had stood for the inauguration.

Place the empty bottle upside down on top of the washer.

Most matter is almost entirely empty space, but not this stuff: a teaspoonful would weigh several tons.

Set the rosette in an empty pot in the shade and wait for it to develop new roots--it will take several weeks.

Suppose you want to move an empty paper clip box by shooting it with a toy dart gun.

If ranching were made more intensive, crops could expand into empty pasture.

In a nearly empty cantina in a dark desert town, the short, drunk man makes his pitch.

One afternoon a villager took me ptarmigan hunting in the empty mountains around the town.

If there's an empty space in your lawn, weeds will find and fill it.

There's even a clip-on oil container that lets you empty the fryer by tipping it up.

Consolidate work areas as much as possible so you don't have to light spaces that are mainly filled with empty cubicles.

Urgently, he fished the portable phone out of his pocket and called his secretary to find out why the pond was empty.

Or maybe you'll decide you don't need that empty stretch of open space after all.

Now it not only has a new name, it has a new feeling, too: empty.

If you want to increase your savings even more, wash only with cold water the next time you empty your hamper.

They take on a completely empty look that challenges the image of the big muscular superhero body.

We've got a new package of bees coming soon to rehive one of the empty hives.

After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to detect them, scientists have come up empty.

The multiverse, if it exists, may have sprung out of a chaotic fluctuation of empty space.

Today it seems to us that the park is practically empty.

For a clever window garden, set up a collection of empty tomato cans on a tray lined in gravel or pebbles.

Wash out empty milk jugs and have your children make hanging bird feeders out of them.

In a moment the waters disappeared, leaving a black, empty level where the populous village had been a few minutes before.

Eventually the lava drains away, leaving an empty cave.

Watch a group of macaques run amok in a market, raid an empty kitchen, and ransack a bootlegger's cache.

Transform empty malls into bustling shopping centers.

The redneck geniuses are about to build a submarine with the help of some empty kegs.

Empty and rinse all your recyclables to remove food residue and other debris.

Empty sella syndrome is a condition in which the pituitary gland shrinks or becomes flattened.

The notes ripple through the empty church, but it's not quite the sort of glorified.

Yet the progress in filling empty bellies has been much more substantial than those two numbers might.

The force of this constantly circulating light will begin twisting the empty space in the middle.

Aspens, empty trails, and reduced rates make fall the ideal time to visit.

Empty nests impact the lives of parents who made career changes to accommodate child rearing.

Like jumbled pieces of chalk, empty shipping containers picked up by tsunami waves lie in the devastated town of.

He set up a makeshift studio in an empty storefront across the street from where he lived.

Scout's arrival seems part of a trend: empty nesters welcoming new life.

My memory is empty fields in late fall and not much else.

Shops have changed places in a version of musical chairs, leaving empty storefronts in their wake.

She is lost in her memories of a bygone past and looking into an empty future of tomorrow.

Prepare the sandwiches on round rolls so they fit neatly into empty soup bowls.

Some groups unleash their music on writhing crowds of adoring fans, while others play to bartenders in empty rooms.

The empty nest may not be such an unhappy place after all.

It is empty because it seeks to distinguish the humanities by its critical-thinking thrust.

To date, they have too readily accepted what they are given, even when the political bento boxes prove empty.

Like a canvas waiting for paint, an empty garden planter can become anything you desire: a meditation in violet, a carnival.

The town is basically empty now, but it's fun to drive through.

But the empty rooms come alive as the guide walks you through what each space was used for.

In a world of stabbing sun and empty brownness, the green and cool of the oasis is all soothing music and fertile life.

Flip the compressed air can upside down and stick the straw inside an empty film canister.

Farahi says the university also looks for people who will rent empty space on the weekends.

At eight o'clock he comes down, and the tower stays empty until the next morning.

Exclusive photos show the eerily empty world they left behind.

Companies have been known to install empty camera domes to save money while giving the impression of surveillance.

The policy goes beyond the standard push for recycling empty cans and plastic bottles.

Food scraps can be buried in empty spots in vegetable and flower gardens.

There was never a carboy empty in our house after that,” he.

Then rehook the vinyl siphoning tube to the bucket's spigot and put the other end in the neck of your first empty bottle.

They managed to take the empty tastelesness of the former approach, and turned it into essential functionality.

The guards sent the bag through several times before asking me to empty it.

Chicago's newly minted mayor, is determined to open a publicly-owned casino to help fill his empty coffers.

Months after she installs a camera outside of an empty wolf den, she returns to it and watches the footage.

Click through the gallery to see the latest bike gadgets and apparel that got even our empty wallets salivating.

You'll have no life, but your bank account will never be empty.

Schools, libraries, theatres hotels and concert halls that were once sources of pride now stand empty and unloved.

They wrap up a useless gift, such as an inedible plant seed or the empty exoskeleton left after he's eaten a fly.

Cut out the monsters, leaving empty space for eyes and mouths as appropriate.

They will suck you dry and leave you an empty husk to blow on the wind if you let them.

Empty positions were filled by junior colleagues, usually without protest or delay.

My favorite thing to take pictures of: completely neutral, empty spaces.

When my pantry is mostly empty then it's time to go shopping and stock up again.

Like the vast majority of those who risked everything to go west, he came up empty.

Litter drifts around empty pitches, wasps hover near overflowing bins and dogs bark outside each embattled caravan.

But it's sitting empty in a closet right now, hidden away from young eyes.

For nearly all of them, their fate on landing has been as empty as such stories.

Expandable waterproof compartment shrinks down to nothing when empty.

The green of a lone plant lends stark contrast to the empty expanse of sand in this desert scene.

Superclusters are filled with dense clusters of galaxies, while supervoids are made up of mostly empty space.

There were a few empty seats in the paid section, too, but it was understandable.

Yet a full city today can mean an empty village or town across the country, or on the other side of the world.

But so far, the world's biggest and best neutrino telescopes have come up empty.

The thwarted hunters skulk nearby with empty bellies.

The outcome is the same: empty cities but plentiful resources.

For convenience, you can store used cooking oil in an empty original container.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

empty (ˈɛmptɪ)

—*adj* (foll by of) , -tier, -tiest
1.	containing nothing
2.	without inhabitants; vacant or unoccupied
3.	carrying no load, passengers, etc
4.	without purpose, substance, or value: an empty life
5.	insincere or trivial: empty words
6.	not expressive or vital; vacant: she has an empty look
7.	informal hungry
8.	devoid; destitute: a life empty of happiness
9.	informal drained of energy or emotion: after the violent argument he felt very empty
10.	maths, logic (of a set or class) containing no members
11.	philosophy, logic (of a name or description) having no reference

—vb (when intr, foll by into) (often foll by of) , -tier, -tiest, -ties, -tying, -tied
12.	to make or become empty
13.	to discharge (contents)
14.	to unburden or rid (oneself): to empty oneself of emotion

—n , -tier, -tiest, -ties, -tying, -tied, -ties
15.	an empty container, esp a bottle

[Old English ǣmtig, from æmetta free time, from æ- without + -metta, from mōtan to be obliged to; see must¹]

'emptiable

—*adj*

'emptier

—n

'emptily

—*adv*

'emptiness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

empty

O.E. æmettig "at leisure, not occupied, unmarried," from æmetta "leisure," from æ "not" + -metta, from motan "to have" (see might). The -p- is a euphonic insertion. Sense evolution from "at leisure" to "empty" is paralleled in several languages, cf. Mod.Gk.

EXPAND

adeios "empty," originally "freedom from fear," from deios "fear." "The adj. adeios must have been applied first to persons who enjoyed freedom from duties, leisure, and so were unoccupied, whence it was extended to objects that were unoccupied" [Buck]. The adj. also became the v. in 16c., replacing M.E. empten, from O.E. geæmtigian. Figurative sense of empty-nester first attested 1987. Empty-handed attested from 1613.

COLLAPSE

Slang Dictionary

empty definition

n.
an empty beer or liquor bottle. : Whose empties are these, and how many are there?

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

empty

In addition to the idioms beginning with empty, also see glass is half full (half empty); running on empty.

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Idioms & Phrases

empty

glass is half full (half empty)

running on empty

Matching Quote

"Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind."

-Imre Lakatos

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