Word.ws English Dictionary

power vacuum

power vacuum noun: a lack of centralised political authority, especially following a conflict, revolution, change of power, etc.

Noun

power vacuum (plural power vacuums or power vacua)

  1. A lack of centralised political authority, especially following a conflict, revolution, change of power, etc.
    • Fourth, knowing what I did of the policies and actions of Moscow and Peking, I was as sure as a man could be that if we did not live up to our commitment in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, they would move to exploit the disarray in the United States and in the alliances of the Free World. They might...1971, Lyndon Johnson, “Challenge and Response: Vietnam 1964—1965”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 152
    • A few hours before the attack, Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli security agency the Shin Bet, had told a parliamentary committee that there was a "power vacuum" in East Jerusalem and he also called for the demolition of the homes of people involved in terrorist attacks.2008 July 22, Rory McCarthy, “Middle East: Driver shot dead after injuring 16 in second Jerusalem bulldozer attack”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 06 May 2021

Examples of power vacuum in a sentence

  • the old order had irretrievably vanished like breath off a razor blade, and there was a good old-fashioned power vacuum or, as we used to say in factional meetings, a “situation of dual power.”2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 184:
  • Henry’s government’s already tenuous hold on the country has largely evaporated during the unrest, other factions have attempted to fill the power vacuum.2022 September 16, Milo Milfort, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Andre Paultre, “Fuel Hike Plunges Haiti Into Near Anarchy”, in The New York Times...
  • The assassination of Charlie Kirk also left a power vacuum on the right that has set off a scramble among its more extreme elements.2025 November 6, Clyde McGrady, “Nick Fuentes’s Rise Puts MAGA Movement in a ‘Time of Choosing’”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y....

Forms of power vacuum

pluralpower vacuums
pluralpower vacua

Questions about power vacuum

What does power vacuum mean?
Power vacuum means a lack of centralised political authority, especially following a conflict, revolution, change of power, etc.
How do you use power vacuum in a sentence?
the old order had irretrievably vanished like breath off a razor blade, and there was a good old-fashioned power vacuum or, as we used to say in factional meetings, a “situation of dual power.”
What part of speech is power vacuum?
Power vacuum is a noun.
What is the plural of power vacuum?
The plural of power vacuum is power vacuums.

Words near power vacuum in the dictionary

  1. power units
  2. power up
  3. power user
  4. power users
  5. power vacua
  6. power vacuum
  7. power vacuums
  8. power walk
  9. power walked
  10. power walking
  11. power walks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: power vacuum (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: “power vacuum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/power_vacuum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.