VACANCY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Vacancy

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/vˈeɪkənsi/ Listen

noun

Vacancy n. (pl. vacancies)

The quality or state of being vacant; emptiness; hence, freedom from employment; intermission; leisure; idleness; listlessness. "All dispositions to idleness or vacancy, even before they are habits, are dangerous."

That which is vacant. Specifically:

(a)

Empty space; vacuity; vacuum. "How is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy?"

(b)

An open or unoccupied space between bodies or things; an interruption of continuity; chasm; gap; as, a vacancy between buildings; a vacancy between sentences or thoughts.

(c)

Unemployed time; interval of leisure; time of intermission; vacation. "Time lost partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and universities." "No interim, not a minute's vacancy." "Those little vacancies from toil are sweet."

(d)

A place or post unfilled; an unoccupied office; as, a vacancy in the senate, in a school, etc.

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Etymology of 'Vacancy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Vacancy" Quotes from Famous Books

... reason for creating the office of Vice-President seems to have been to provide for the emergency of a vacancy in the Presidency. ...

— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... she looked around, showing a pale countenance bedewed with tears, and totally devoid of any expression which he could connect with a consciousness of his presence. For a moment she stared vacantly at him, while he, with almost equal vacancy, regarded her. Then a thrill of surprise shook him. A sudden light of knowledge leaped up in ...

— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... wrote Weed. "I judge, as we might indeed well know from his nobleness of disposition, that he has no idea of saying or doing anything wrong or unkind; but it is sad to see him so unhappy. Will there be a vacancy in the Board of Regents this winter? Could one be made at the close of the session? Could he have it? Raymond's nomination and election is hard for him to bear."[575] Two or three weeks later, after a call at ...

— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... anything further, I desire to say that the Canadian Ordnance Officers were very hard worked and had to make "bricks without straw." The death of Colonel Strange made a vacancy which should have gone to Captain Donaldson, a Canadian, my Quartermaster, and no better or more experienced ...

— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... voluntary exile)—his two sons aiming at each other's life. The situation is a well-conceived one, and described with spirit. Calasiris is recognised by his penitent sons, and himself resumes the priesthood, the contested vacancy in which had been occasioned only by his absence and supposed death. The lovers are received as his guests in the temple of Isis, and all seems on the point of ending happily, when Calasiris, as if the object of his existence had been accomplished ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine--Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

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