vacant
part of speech
adjective (vacant); adverb vacantly; noun vacancy (a vacancy, vacancies)
meaning for a pupil
1) Vacant means empty, not being used or lived in: a vacant seat, a vacant house. tree →
2) A vacant job is one that nobody is doing yet, so someone may be hired. tree →
3) A vacant look or expression shows no thought or interest, as if the person is not paying attention. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life, signs say «Vacant» on toilet doors and «Vacancies» at hotels; a vacant lot is an empty piece of land. In maths word problems, vacant seats or rooms = total − taken. In stories, a vacant stare shows tiredness or shock.
examples
- Is this seat vacant? tree →
- The toilet sign says «vacant», so you can go in. tree →
- The old shop has been vacant for months. tree →
- The hotel had no vacancies. tree →
- There is a vacant job at the library. tree →
- He gave me a vacant stare. tree →
- The cinema has 120 seats and 85 are taken, so 35 are vacant. tree →
- Old Iktomi led his young Iktomi brood to the place where he had left the turtle, but it was vacant. tree →
note
Opposite: occupied, taken, engaged (UK toilets). In maths: vacant = total − occupied. «Vacant» describes places; «vacation» (US holiday) comes from the same idea of being empty or free.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «vacant» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.