Etymograph

English

vacuity

Vacuity comes from Latin vacuitās ‘empty space, vacancy, vacuity’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*h₁weh₂-1‘to be/become empty’root named by Wiktionary
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*wakowos2reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvacuus3‘empty, vacant, unoccupied’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvacuitās1‘empty space, vacancy, vacuity’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1603vacuity1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English vacuity
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Latin vacuus
  3. 3 Wiktionary, Latin vacuitas
  4. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes […]: “The meanes I use to suppresse this frenzy, and…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*h₁weh₂-Wiktionary, English vacuity‘to be/become empty’root named by Wiktionary
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*wakowosWiktionary, Latin vacuusreconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvacuusWiktionary, Latin vacuitas‘empty, vacant, unoccupied’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvacuitāsWiktionary, English vacuity‘empty space, vacancy, vacuity’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1603vacuityWiktionary, English vacuity. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes […]: “The meanes I use to suppresse this frenzy, and…”

Formed from vacuous + -ity

Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- ‘to be/become empty’

Proto-Italic *wakowos

Latin vacuus ‘empty, vacant’

English vacuous

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- ‘to be/become empty’

want, various, waste, variety, vast, vacation, vary, variable, vain, vacant, vanish, vanity, waning, wane, vacate, varicella, evanescent, 25 more

through Latin vacuus ‘empty, vacant, unoccupied’

void, vacuum, evacuation, evacuate, vacuous, 3 more

Today it means

noun Emptiness.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “vacuity”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin vacuus, Latin vacuitas. 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 / Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- / vacuity

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