vacant
You can use the adjective vacant to describe something that is empty — an apartment with no tenant or furniture, a job with no worker, or a person with no brainpower.
Vacant has its roots in the Latin word meaning “empty” or “free.” It can mean “unoccupied,” such as that seat next to you on the train — even if you’ve put your coat there. A vacant look or stare, however, is one that shows no intelligence or the slightest spark of interest. One might find this vacant gaze in the eyes of a zombie or in the eyes of a teen who has spent the past five hours gaming.
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Vocabulary lists containing vacant
January 16 is National Nothing Day. Mark this empty occasion by learning this list of words describing things that are absent, or missing, or never there at all. It turns out that there are lots of ways to say nothing!
Whether you're talking about staying home from school or missing a relative, this list has words for everything and everybody that's not around. For more synonym lists, explore our "Say What You Mean" resources.
Author Paul Fleischman coined the term seedfolks to describe ordinary people whose lives are connected by a community garden.