vacancy

Noun

vacancy (countable and uncountable, plural vacancies)

1. An unoccupied position or job.
   • Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.1965, Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
2. An available room in a hotel; guest house, etc.
3. Empty space.
   • The following account of Cavendish is from one of our most accomplished chemists, who communicated it orally to Mr. Tomlinson, from whom I received it. “When I was a very young man—a new Fellow of the Royal Society—I always looked upon it as a great honour to be noticed by Cavendish, and so did the...1851, George Wilson, The Life of the Hon. Henry Cavendish, page 169
   • Sky was set above earth, land ringed with sea, / Chaos retired to its own vacancy ….1993, James Michie, trans. Ovid, The Art of Love, Book II

   Synonyms:

   vacantness, vacuum, vacuity

4. A blank mind, unoccupied with thought.
   • ...—who has not looked back to the past with that passion of hopelessness, which deems that life can never more be what it has been,—with a consciousness that the dearer emotions are exhausted, while in their place have arisen but vacancy and weariness?1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 2

   Synonyms:

   vacantness, vacuity, vacuousness

5. Lack of intelligence or understanding.
6. A defect in a crystal caused by the absence of an atom in a lattice