empty space en · NOUN
Meanings
-
An unoccupied space where something may be stored
You can park your car in that empty space.
You can put the key in that empty space.
-
An unoccupied area or volume.
The empty space at the sides of the page is called the "margin".
He spends all his time staring into empty space.
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Vacuum; a space containing nothing at all
Atoms are mostly empty space.
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(figuratively) A feeling of longing for someone or something that is gone; a sense of a thing's absence.
Now, there is only empty space where the future should be.
2004, Eleanor Vincent, Swimming with Maya: A Mother's Story, page 211:It didn't seem possible that he wasn't going to be standing by the Dumpster, waiting for me at lunch, or meeting me in the science lab after school. I felt an empty space where my heart had been.
1986, Janet Quin-Harkin, My Secret Love, page 216:The body of the working-class man of the 1930s — and to an extent its text — is hungry, an empty space once filled by its labor.
1998, Renny Christopher, Linda Strom, Lisa Orr, Working Class Studies: 1 & 2, page 175:
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(figuratively) Barren, desolate land, empty of life and people.
After 1849 ‘the West’ ceased to be a sort of frontier of infinity and became instead a large empty space of prairie, desert and mountain, suspended between two rapidly developing areas to the east and along the Pacific.
1975, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital. 1848-1875, published 1995, page 168:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| empty spaces | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Translations (4)
fi tyhjä paikka (unoccupied space) · fi tyhjä tila (unoccupied area) · bg празно място (unoccupied space) · bg празно пространство (unoccupied area)