vacuous
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What is today’s Word of the Day and how do you pronounce “vacuous”?
It's the Word of the Day podcast for August 14th.
Today's word is vacuous, spelled V-A-C-U-O-U-S. Vacuous is an adjective. It's a formal word indicating a lack of thought, intelligence, or substance.
How is “vacuous” illustrated in a literary example about Harper Lee?
Here's the word used in a is an artifact of its time, but it had its place in moving the arc of history and still does. As you might have guessed, the word vacuous shares the same root as the word vacuum. Both come from the
What Latin roots connect “vacuous” to words like vacuum, evacuate, and vacation?
the oldest meaning of which is an empty space, as well as the verb evacuate, originally meaning to empty of contents. Its predecessor, the verb vacare, is also an ancestor of the words vacation, vacancy, and even void. All of these words suggest an emptiness of space or else a fleeing of people or things from one place to another. Vacuous appeared in English in the middle of the 1600s, at first literally describing something that was empty.
When did “vacuous” evolve from a literal “empty” meaning to a figurative sense of lacking substance?
Centuries later, it acquired its figurative usage, describing one who is lacking any substance of the mind. With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is today’s Word of the Day and how do you pronounce “vacuous”?
0:06–0:24
2
How is “vacuous” illustrated in a literary example about Harper Lee?
0:24–0:54
3
What Latin roots connect “vacuous” to words like vacuum, evacuate, and vacation?
0:54–1:28
4
When did “vacuous” evolve from a literal “empty” meaning to a figurative sense of lacking substance?
1:28–1:49