Empty

How to spell empty

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce empty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does empty mean?

1. adjectiveContaining nothing; having no contents or occupants.
2. verbTo remove all the contents of something, leaving it bare.

Empty in a sentence

• adjective

  The fridge was completely empty after the long weekend.

• verb

  Please empty the dishwasher before you leave for work.

• adjective

  She parked in the first empty space she could find.

• verb

  He had to empty his pockets at the security checkpoint.

Where does empty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Empty comes from the Old English ǣmtig, sometimes spelled ǣmettig, which meant 'at leisure, idle, unoccupied' rather than simply 'containing nothing'. It was built on the noun ǣmetta, meaning 'leisure' or 'free time', so the earliest sense described a person with nothing to do as much as a vessel with nothing in it. Over the medieval period the physical sense of 'holding nothing' took over and became the dominant meaning we use today. One quirk worth noticing for spelling is the 'p': it was never part of the original word but slipped in naturally because English speakers found it hard to move straight from the 'm' sound to the 't' sound, and the spelling preserved that intrusive letter. This is a wholly native Germanic word, with no Latin or French detour, which is why it looks so plain yet still trips writers up with that silent-feeling 'p' and the final 'y'.

How the word is built

• empt- (from Old English ǣmtig: idle, vacant)
• -y (adjective ending)