Also 6 vacuytee, 6–7 vacuitie, 7 vacuety. [ad. L. vacuitās empty space, vacancy, freedom, etc., f. vacuus: see VACUUM. So F. vacuité (1314), It. vacuità, Sp. vacuidad, Pg. vacuidade.]
I. 1. Absolute emptiness of space; complete absence of matter.
1546. Langley, trans. Pol. Verg. de Invent., I. ii. 4 b. Epicurus … putteth two Causes Atomos or Motes and Vacuitie or emptinesse.
1597. Middleton, Wisd. Solomon, i. 2. For him … The Horizons and hemespheres obay, And windes the fillers of vacuitie.
c. 1626. Donne, Serm., Wks. 1839, IV. 20. Water will clamber up hills and Air will sink down into Vaults rather than admit Vacuity.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, iii. (1658), 24. Aristotle … hath demonstrated that there can be no motion in vacuity.
a. 1700. Ken, Hymnotheo, Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 294. Some Dotards dream’d … That Atoms … Should rise from nothing in Vacuity.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Vacuum, But mere Space, or Vacuity, is suppos’d to be extended; therefore it is material.
1829. Chapters Phys. Sci., 231. A large portion of interspersed vacuity is sufficient for all purposes.
186[?]. G. Outram, Law Lyrics, The Annuity, viii. She beats the taeds that live in stanes An’ fatten in vacuity.
b. With a, no, etc. (Passing into 8.)
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 1021. There is no voidnesse or vacuity in nature.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 54. So the laws of nature will admit of many things contrary to nature, rather then endure a vacuity.
1704. Ray, Creation, I. 83. Nature’s abhorrence of a Vacuity.
transf. a. 1631. Donne, Select. (1840), 244. In the first vacuity, when thou wast nothing he sought thee so early as in Adam.
1655. Fuller, Hist. Cambr. (1840), 237. To prevent a vacuity, (the detestation of nature,) a new plantation was soon substituted in their room.
2. Emptiness consisting in the absence of solid or liquid matter.
1579. G. Baker, Guydo’s Quest., 12. Some [bones] are embossed for to enter, and other haue vacuity that receiueth.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., 156. The vacuity of the depleted veins doth attract the bloud beneath.
1822. Good, Study Med., II. 10. This vacuity of the arteries upon death, was one of the objections urged very forcibly by the ancients against the circulation of the blood.
b. Absence of any of the visible objects usually occupying certain spaces; complete emptiness in respect of things or persons.
1660. F. Brooke, trans. Le Blanc’s Trav., 268. Leading him to a dark deep well,… but terrified with the vacuity and darknesse, he retired.
1759. Johnson, Rasselas, xv. The princess and her maid,… seeing nothing to bound their prospect, considered themselves as in danger of being lost in a dreary vacuity. Ibid. (1775), in Boswell (1816), II. 424. Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xx. Such sunbeams as forced their way through the narrow Gothic lattices … and … lost themselves in the vacuity of the vaults behind.
1842. H. Rogers, Introd. Burke’s Wks., 67. The grim spectres … who stalk from desolation to desolation, through the dreary vacuity … of chill and comfortless chambers.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess (1900), 139/1. As he gazed, a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.
c. The fact of being unfilled or unoccupied.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, 41. But ’tis cheaper to supply the vacuity of such accidental decays by a new plantation.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Drama of Exile, 168. To fill the vacant thrones of me and mine, Which affront Heaven with their vacuity.
3. The quality or fact of being empty, in various fig. senses.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, II. xii. (1632), 247. To make them feele the emptiness, vacuity, and no worth of man.
1640. Bp. Reynolds, Passions, xvi. 169. The most generall [cause of desire] … is a Vacuity, Indigence, and selfe-insufficiency of the Soule.
1690. C. Nesse, Hist. & Myst. O. & N. Test., I. 289. They have the most light to discover to themselves their own vacuity and nothingness.
1806. A. Knox, Rem., I. 21. It would follow that … the great central appetite of intellectual man … was abandoned to the self-torture of irremediable vacuity.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., vi. (1872), 202. Here is an abyss of vacuity in our much-admired opulence.
1885. Pater, Marius, II. 144. It was an experience which came in the midst of a deep sense of vacuity in things.
b. Emptiness (in fig. senses) as a condition or state having a kind of real existence.
a. 1711. Ken, Christophil, Poet. Wks. 1721, I. 429. Thou all-sufficient art, and I Am nothing but vacuity.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 141, ¶ 9. Think on the misery of him who is condemned to cultivate barrenness and ransack vacuity. Ibid. (1776), Lett. to Mrs. Thrale, 30 March. I know that a whole system of hopes, and designs, and expectations, is swept away at once, and nothing left but bottomless vacuity.
1819. Wiffen, Aonian Hours (1820), 25. The drear Vacuity of sorrow on thee lay.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, vi. (1904), 245. Having once parted with Reality, he tumbles helpless in Vacuity.
1888. P. Fitzgerald, Fatal Zero, iv. In my lonely blue chamber, there is a sort of vacuity for thought, the world is shut out.
4. Complete absence of ideas; vacancy of mind or thought.
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. vi. § 1. Men … are at the first without vnderstanding or knowledge at all. Neuerthelesse from this vtter vacuitie they grow by degrees.
1661. K. W., Conf. Charac., Meere Polititian (1860), 27. Which will availe him little; but to be an indicium of his own vacuity and emptiness of all sollidity.
1907. Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, 363. The Pulse,… if it be weak,… indicates Vacuity and Fear.
1773. Han. More, Search after Happ., ii. Though more to folly than to guilt inclined, A drear vacuity possess’d my mind.
1818. Miss Ferrier, Marriage, xv. Imputing to fatigue of body, what in fact was the consequence of mental vacuity, he proposed returning home.
1854. Marion Harland, Alone, xvii. She heard and saw all that passed; but in place of heart and sense, was a dead vacuity.
1885. Clodd, Myths & Dr., I. i. 9. We cannot so far lull our faculty of thought as to realise the mental vacuity of the savage.
b. Const. of (eye, mind, thought).
1760. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, III. i. That perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare with.
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 297. ’Tis thus the understanding takes repose In indolent vacuity of thought.
1829. Cobbett, Adv. Young Man, v. 247. A great fondness for music is a mark of … great vacuity of mind.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xx. 507. He frequents low dissolute haunts from no graver cause than idleness and vacuity of mind.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 183. We may be sure that the vacuity of thought in which most men live was for Saul a thing impossible.
5. Complete absence or lack of something.
1601. Sir W. Cornwallis, Ess., II. xlv. (1631), 251. Which vacuitie of vertue at that time will breede more terrour to him then darknesse to children.
1642. D. Rogers, Naaman, 172. Christ is a sufficient store to a poore soule in the vacuity of other things.
1698. J. Cockburn, Bourignianism Detected, i. 7. She … was in an admirable vacuity of all Desire of knowing.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, IV. vi. When he is quite tired of his existence, from a total vacuity of ideas, he must affect a look of absence.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 118. There is as much character in his air and manner as there is vacuity of it in the countenance of … St. Etienne.
1822. Good, Study Med., III. 46. To contemplate the body and mind … at birth … as consisting equally of a blank or vacuity of impressions.
† 6. Complete freedom or exemption from something. Obs.
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom., I. xii. § 1. The soule cannot haue in it, any true ioy,… vnlesse the same be founded, both in security, and in confidence, and in tranquillity. All which do imply a vacuity from feare.
1648. Sanderson, Serm. (1681), II. 246. By the Evenness of the Mind and the Vacuity from those secret lashes … that haunt a guilty Conscience.
a. 1665. J. Goodwin, Filled w. the Spirit (1867), 429. A well-grounded vacuity or freedom from all troublesome, distracting, and tormenting fears and cares.
7. † a. Leisure for some pursuit. Obs.–1
1607. Scholast. Disc. agst. Antichrist, I. iii. 137. From this preposterousnesse of the Crosse setting the sense before the spirite, come wee to his Vacuitie for his inwarde Devotion.
b. Lack of occupation; idleness.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, I. II. ix. 389. A whole race of men … whom the pain of vacuity forced upon some application of mind.
1875. A. R. Hope, My Schoolboy F., 72. The hours of thoughtful vacuity I had spent.
II. 8. A hollow or enclosed space empty of matter; esp. a small internal cavity or interstice of this kind in a solid body.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg., D ij. Some [bones] are enbossed for to entre, and other haue vacuytees that receyueth.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 330. That so those places being emptied … the vacuety may be replenished with better blood.
1659. Hammond, On Ps. lxv. 10. The earth … sinks down and fills up the vacuities.
1677. Grew, Anat. Pl. (1682), 300. There are Vacuities in Water. That is to say, that all the parts of Water are not contiguous.
1731. Medley, Kolben’s Cape G. Hope, II. 95. Those pieces become as hard as flints, and altogether as smooth and solid; not the least vacuity or interstice being to be seen.
1770. Phil. Trans., LX. 422. Every particle of light that issues from the sun, must leave a spherical vacuity of one millionth of one millionth of an inch diameter. Ibid. (1800), XC. 235. A wad was placed over the powder, dry sand superadded, to fill all vacuities.
1840. Jrnl. Engl. Agric. Soc., I. III. 355. Water in descending seeks the nearest vacuity.
1872. Dana, Corals, i. 38. The polyp has … no blood-vessels but the vacuities among the tissues.
b. A cosmic space empty of matter.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., I. § 49. When this sensible world shall be destroyed, all shall then be here as it is now there, an Empyreall Heaven, a quasi vacuitie.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 932. That seat soon failing, [he] meets A vast vacuitie.
1685. Boyle, Enq. Notion Nat., 75. Whilst their numberless Atoms wildly rov’d in their infinite Vacuity.
1795. W. Blake, Bk. Los, iv. The Deep fled away On all sides, and left an unform’d Dark Vacuity.
9. An empty space left or contrived in something, esp. in some composite work or structure.
1624. Wotton, Archit. (1672), 26. To place the Columnes precisely one over another, that so the solid may answer to the solid, and the vacuities to the vacuities.
1655. Fuller, Hist. Waltham Abbey (1840), 257. The great pillars thereof are wreathed with indentings; which vacuities, if formerly filled up with brass,… added much to the beauty of the building.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., I. 55/2. The vacuities which are left between the back … of the Arch, and the upright of the Wall.
1775. Johnson, West. Isl., Wks. X. 509. Round which there are narrow cavities or recesses formed by small vacuities or by a double wall.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 425. Rooms are the interior vacuities or habitable parts of a building.
1845. Florist’s Jrnl., 67. An ingeniously contrived trap for earwigs,… leaving a vacuity for the reception of the insects.
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, 8. By a vacuity in the skull walls for the blood to pass out from the lateral sinus.
b. An open space, gap, or interval left between or among things. rare.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, ii. ¶ 12. Whereby the Elephants passing the vacuities of the Hastati, might have run upon them.
1757. Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., I. iv. The Scots and Picts … rushed with redoubled violence into this vacuity.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home (1879), 152. The market-place … of the town is a rather spacious and irregularly shaped vacuity.
c. An empty space due to the disappearance or absence of some special thing.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), III. 227. He has also seen others … reproduce a smaller or larger number of teeth to supply vacuities progressively produced in earlier life.
1849. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sci., xxxvii. 415. Those dark vacuities called ‘coal sacks’ by the ancient navigators, which are so numerous between α Centauri and α Antaris.
1867–77. G. F. Chambers, Astron., VI. iv. 519. The central vacuity is not quite dark.
10. An emptiness, an empty space, a blank, in various fig. uses.
a. 1631. Donne, Select. (1840), 5. A filling of all former vacuities, a supplying of all emptinesses in our souls.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 325. In this age, when men may say any thing if they have but Rhetorick to fill up the Vacuities.
1682. W. Owtram, Serm., 342. Our Saviour … filled up the vacuities that Moses had left in moral duties.
1732. Pope, Ess. Man, II. 286. Each want of happiness by hope supply’d, And each vacuity of sense by pride.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., II. ii. (1869), 303. Whatever vacuities this excessive circulation occasioned in the necessary coin of the kingdom.
1841. Emerson, Ess., Ser. I. x. But yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much.
1850. Kingsley, A. Locke, i. Oh those Sabbaths … when there was nothing to fill up the long vacuity but books of which I did not understand a word.
11. An empty or inane thing.
1648. J. Beaumont, Psyche, XI. lxviii. That with those huge ador’d Vacuities, which puff the World up with their frothy flood, Ev’n massy Gold must counted be.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low C. Wars, 511. The Prince, by the Concessions of these Honorary Vacuities, redeeming the War from delay.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., I. iv. Thou for one wilt not again vote for any quack, do honour to any edge-gilt vacuity in man’s shape.
