Etymograph

English

empty

Empty comes from Middle English emty ‘empty, vacant’, and goes back to Old English ǣmtiġ.

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150ǣmtiġ1‘vacant’
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500emty1‘empty’
  3. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588empty1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English empty
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “I hope our Ladies treaſure and our owne, May…”.

Lineage

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150ǣmtiġWiktionary, English empty‘vacant’
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500emtyWiktionary, English empty‘empty’
  3. Englishearliest quotation c. 1587–1588emptyWiktionary, English empty. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1587–1588, Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […]: “I hope our Ladies treaſure and our owne, May…”

A compound of *uz- ‘out’ + *mōtijô

Proto-Indo-European *úd ‘up, out’

Proto-Indo-European *ud-s- ‘up, out’

Proto-Germanic *uz- ‘out’

The story

The interconsonantal excrescent p is a euphonic insertion dating from Middle English.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Old English ǣmtiġ

Today it means

adj Devoid of content; containing nothing or nobody; vacant.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “empty”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Old English ǣmtiġ / empty

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