Literary notes about Vacuity (AI summary)
In literature, vacuity is employed with remarkable versatility to evoke both concrete physical emptiness and abstract states of mental or emotional void. It appears in descriptions of anatomical or spatial gaps, as in the inner mandible or furnace designs ([1], [2], [3]), yet it is equally potent in conveying a character’s state of detached indifference or inner barrenness, such as the helpless descent into mental emptiness expressed by Carlyle’s subject ([4]) or the blank, listless gaze that speaks of a depleted soul ([5], [6]). Moreover, authors extend its reach to capture environmental desolation—the oppressive, empty stretches of a landscape that mirror the inner void of its dwellers ([7], [8]). This layered use of the term enriches narrative tone by interweaving physical absence with metaphors for the loss of vitality and substance.
- On the inner side of the jaw there is an oval vacuity, the internal mandibular foramen (fig.
— from The Vertebrate Skeleton by Sidney H. (Sidney Hugh) Reynolds - Any part of the furnace or flue that is under the floor of the house, should have a vacuity on both sides to let the heat pass upward.
— from The American Flower Garden Directory Containing Practical Directions for the Culture of Plants, in the Hot-House, Garden-House, Flower Garden and Rooms or Parlours, for Every Month in the Year by Robert Buist - The short-tailed types represented by Pterodactylus and Ornithocheirus have no distinct antorbital vacuity in the skull defined by bone.
— from Dragons of the Air: An Account of Extinct Flying Reptiles by H. G. (Harry Govier) Seeley - Having once parted with Reality, he tumbles helpless in Vacuity; no rescue for him.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle - There was a certain vacuity in his expression, for which one found it hard to account.
— from The Lost Ambassador; Or, The Search For The Missing Delora by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim - His pretentiousness will only expose his vacuity.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - And between the two, what a long stretch of vacuity!
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - We must remember, moreover, that the immensity, uniformity, and vacuity of the Desert, singularly contribute to render optical illusions frequent.
— from The Desert World by Arthur Mangin
