vacuously
/ˈvækjuəsli/
adverb
- In a way that shows a lack of thought, intelligence, or expression; blankly or emptily.
- He smiled vacuously, as if he had no idea what was happening around him.
- She stared vacuously at the television, not registering anything on the screen.
- The student nodded vacuously during the lecture, clearly not following the explanation.
- In a way that is meaningless, pointless, or lacking substance.
- The movie's plot was vacuously simple, leaving audiences bored.
- Many online comments are vacuously repetitive, adding nothing to the discussion.
- The politician's speech was vacuously optimistic, offering no real solutions.
- In logic or mathematics, in a way that is true because the condition cannot be satisfied (e.g., a statement about all members of an empty set).
- The theorem's premise was impossible, so the conclusion held vacuously.
- The statement 'All unicorns are pink' is vacuously true because there are no unicorns.
- In set theory, the claim that every element of the empty set has a certain property is vacuously true.
Synonyms