Definition of "empty" []

• Holding or containing nothing. (adjective)
• Mathematics Having no elements or members; null: an empty set. (adjective)
• Having no occupants or inhabitants; vacant: an empty chair; empty desert. (adjective)
• Lacking force or power: an empty threat. (adjective)
• Lacking purpose or substance; meaningless: an empty life. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "An empty box on the stage is not described to an audience as “empty, ” but is handled and moved about in the same way that any empty box would be treated -- though a tremulous bunny just might be hanging, unnoticed, behind it."
• "Instances of the word are not frequent, possibly because we had another word for empty (_toom_) in common with the Danes; but perhaps there was no necessity for dwelling upon it in the sense of _empty_; it was only its application as an epithet to a _concave_ or _hollow shield_ that your question could have had in view."
• "An empty smoker in the Cornish express -- _empty_ except for me!"