empty
pronunciation
How to pronounce empty in British English:
UK [ˈempti]
How to pronounce empty in American English:
US [ˈempti]
-
- Noun:
- a container that has been emptied
-
- Verb:
- make void or empty of contents
- become empty or void of its content
- leave behind empty; move out of
- remove
- excrete or discharge from the body
-
- Adjective:
- holding or containing nothing
- devoid of significance or point
- having nothing inside
- needing nourishment
- emptied of emotion
Word Origin
- empty
- empty: [OE] The original meaning of Old English ǣmtig appears to have been ‘unoccupied, at leisure’, and it was only secondarily that it developed the physical connotations of ‘not full’ which have come down to us in empty. (It also meant ‘unmarried’.) It was a derivative of the noun ǣmetta ‘rest, leisure’. This is a word of uncertain history, but it has been plausibly analysed as the negative prefix ǣ- plus a derivative of the root which produced modern English mete (as in ‘mete out’), meaning something like ‘not assigned’.=> mete
- empty (adj.)
- c. 1200, from Old English æmettig "at leisure, not occupied; unmarried," also "containing nothing, unoccupied," from æmetta "leisure," from æ "not" + -metta, from motan "to have" (see might (n.)). The -p- is a euphonic insertion. Sense evolution from "at leisure" to "containing nothing, unoccupied" is paralleled in several languages, such as Modern Greek 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]. Related: Emptier. Figurative sense of empty-nester attested by 1960.
- empty (n.)
- "an empty thing" that was or is expected to be full, 1865, from empty (adj.). At first of barges, freight cars, mail pouches.
- empty (v.)
- 1520s, from empty (adj.); replacing Middle English empten, from Old English geæmtigian. Related: Emptied; emptying.
Antonym
Example
- 1. Life is but an empty dream !
- 2. Right now these spacious halls are absolutely empty .
- 3. Inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup .
- 4. But that may be an empty threat .
- 5. Logistics managers say they negotiate deeper discounts every week on ships that are leaving half empty .