Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “vacuous” come from?

Vacuous comes from Latin vacuus, from the verb vaco, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₁weh₂-, meaning to be empty or unoccupied.

vacuous (English): Empty; void; lacking meaningful content; Showing...

Definitions

  1. Empty; void; lacking meaningful content; Showing...

Ancestry of “vacuous”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1English-ousUsed to form adjectives from nouns, to denote...
2Middle English-ous—
3Old French-us-ous, used for forming adjectives
4Latin-ōsus—
5Old Latin-ōssus—

Words derived from “vacuous”

  • vacuously
  • vacuousness
Every word from Old Latin -ōssus →