Also emptyness(e. [f. EMPTY a. + -NESS.] The condition of being empty.
1. gen. The condition of being void of contents, of not being filled, furnished or inhabited.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helthe, II. (1541), 45. The moderation of slepe must be measured … by emptynesse or fulnesse of the body.
1535. Coverdale, 2 Esdras vii. 25. Vnto the full, plenty: and to the emptye, emptynesse.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. iii. 75. His Coffers sound With hollow Pouerty, and Emptinesse.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 300. Appetite consisteth in the Emptiness of the Mouth of the Stomack.
1680–1. Penn, Wks. Isaac Pennington, I. A iij b. In that emptiness they waited to be filled of him that filleth all things.
1719. Watts, Hymns, I. cii. Blest are the humble souls that see Their emptiness and poverty.
1728. Pope, Dunc., I. 33. Keen hollow winds howl thro’ the bleak recess, Emblem of music caus’d by emptiness.
1747. Walpole, Lett. H. Mann, 178 (1834), II. 203. No idea of the emptiness of London.
1845–6. Trench, Huls. Lect., II. vii. 261. This was the emptiness of which Christ’s coming should be the answering fulness.
1885. Manch. Exam., 15 April, 3/1. Emptiness of subject and monotony of treatment.
b. concr. Void space; a vacuum.
1570. Dee, Math. Pref., d j. Water … by descending, to leaue Emptines at his backe.
1625. Donne, Serm. (1640), iii. 22 a. A supplying of all emptinesses in our soules.
1691–8. Norris, Pract. Disc., IV. 327. An Emptyness which they can never fill.
1713. Warder, True Amazons (ed. 2), 38. The occasion of this vast Emptiness in the Hive.
1877. Bryant, Lit. People Snow, 346. Where once they made their haunt, was emptiness.
2. The state of being void of certain specified contents, or of a specified quality. Const. of.
1593. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., III. i. Emptines of Christian loue and charity.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., III. iii. 157. He whose worth doth speak need not speak his own worth. Such boasting sounds proceed from emptinesse of desert.
1707. Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, 362. The Pulsus profundus … indicates … emptiness of Humours.
1875. Maskell, Ivories, v. 45. To absence of composition … were added neglect and emptiness of form.
3. Want of solidity or substance; inability to satisfy desire; unsatisfactoriness; vacuity, hollowness.
a. 1695. Dryden, Dufresnoy, Pref. xii. ’Tis this which causes the Graces … to subsist in the emptiness of Light and Shadows.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 271, ¶ 4. To lay before my Readers the Emptiness of Ambition.
1781. Cowper, Hope, 156. Hope … has the wondrous virtue to educe From emptiness itself a real use.
1860. W. Collins, Wom. White, 125. Objections that rose to my lips … died away in their own emptiness.
1871. Miss Braddon, Fenton’s Quest, I. ii. 28. There was no more dulness or emptiness for Gilbert Fenton in his life at Lidford.
b. pl. Trifles, trivialities, ‘vanities.’
1843. G. P. R. James, Forest Days (1847), 14. The little emptinesses which occupy free hearts in the early morning.
1884. A. Maclaren, in Chr. Commw., 11 Dec., 111/2. Unsubstantial emptinesses and moonshiny illusions.
4. Want of knowledge; lack of sense; inanity. Also, of an author or a composition: Lack of vigorous thought or expression; meagerness or poverty of matter.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1013. I wonder at Pennius’s brevity and emptiness in this argument.
1699. Garth, Dispens., IV. (1730), 12. Bur[ge]ss deafens all the list’ning Press With Peals of most Seraphick Emptiness.
1728. Pope, Dunc., I. 185. Me emptiness and dulness could inspire, And were my elasticity, and fire.
1844. Stanley, Arnold (1858), I. iv. 168. The falsehood and emptiness of the Latin historians.
