Word.ws English Dictionary

horror vacui

UK/ˈhɒɹ.ə ˈvæ.kjuː.aɪ/US/ˈhɔɹ.ɚ ˈvæ.kju.aɪ/

horror vacui noun: the Aristotelian principle that there are no vacuums in nature.

horror vacui: the Aristotelian principle that there are no vacuums in nature
Image: Jean Duvet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

horror vacui (uncountable)

  1. (historical) The Aristotelian principle that there are no vacuums in nature.
  2. The abhorrence of a vacuum; the general tendency to dislike empty space.
    • It is merely the horror vacui of human reason in general which leads it to recoil when it comes across an idea about which no thought is possible, […]1991, Kant: Political Writings, →ISBN, page 212
  3. In particular, the tendency of an artist (or of art) to fill an entire surface with detail, leaving no blank space.
    • The Where's Wally? series exhibits horror vacui.

Origin of horror vacui

From Latin horror vacuī (“fear of empty space”), from horror (“horror, fear”) + vacuum (“vacuum”).

Questions about horror vacui

What does horror vacui mean?
Horror vacui means the Aristotelian principle that there are no vacuums in nature.
What part of speech is horror vacui?
Horror vacui is a noun.
How do you pronounce horror vacui?
Horror vacui is pronounced /ˈhɒɹ.ə ˈvæ.kjuː.aɪ/ (UK).

Words near horror vacui in the dictionary

  1. horror punk
  2. horror show
  3. horror shows
  4. horror stories
  5. horror story
  6. horror vacui
  7. horror-show
  8. horror-shows
  9. horror-stricken
  10. horror-struck
  11. horror-thriller

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: horror vacui (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “horror vacui.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/horror_vacui. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.