- with no people or things inside
- an empty box/glass/bottle
- empty hands (= not holding anything)
- an empty plate (= with no food on it)
- I noticed an empty space on the bookshelf.
- I couldn't see any empty seats (= with nobody sitting in them).
- The theatre was half empty.
- an empty house/room/bus
- As it got later, the streets became empty.
- The house had been standing empty (= without people living in it) for some time.
- It's not good to drink alcohol on an empty stomach (= without having eaten something).
- empty of something (formal) The room was empty of furniture.
Extra Examples- The box lay empty on the bed.
- The city is letting useful housing stand empty.
- The house felt curiously empty without the children.
- The house had been left empty for several weeks.
- The reservoirs could end up empty if this dry weather continues.
- There was a vast expanse of totally empty sky to look at.
- There were a few chairs, but the room was otherwise empty.
- a half-empty box of chocolates
- The streets were empty of people.
- For the first time in years, the town square was empty of pigeons.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- appear
- be
- feel
- …
- completely
- entirely
- quite
- …
- of
Definitions on the go
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- [usually before noun] (of something that somebody says or does) with no meaning; not meaning what is said synonym hollow
- empty words
- an empty promise
- Voters will see through the empty rhetoric.
- an empty gesture aimed at pleasing the crowds
- (of a person, or a person’s life) unhappy because life does not seem to have a purpose, usually after something sad has happened
- Three months after his death, she still felt empty.
- My life seems empty without you.
- We all feel very empty now she's gone.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- appear
- be
- feel
- …
- completely
- entirely
- quite
- …
- of
- empty of something without a quality that you would expect to be there
- words that were empty of meaning
Word OriginOld English ǣmtig, ǣmetig ‘at leisure, empty’, from ǣmetta ‘leisure’, perhaps from ā ‘no, not’ + mōt ‘meeting’ (see moot).
Idioms
See empty in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee empty in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishthe glass is half-empty
- used to refer to the attitude of somebody who always looks at the bad things in a situation rather than the good ones
- For me the glass is half-empty.
- If you start to look at things with a glass half-empty mentality, your problems soon pile up.
Check pronunciation:
empty