Vácancy. n.s. [from vacant.]
- Empty space; vacuity.
How is't
That thus you bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse? Sh. Hamlet. - Chasm; space unfilled.
The reader finds a wide vacancy, and knows not how to transport his thoughts to the next particular, for want of some connecting idea. Watt's Logick.
- [Vacance, Fr.] State of a post or employment when it is unsupplied.
In the vacancy of a bishop, the guardian of the spiritualities was summon'd to parliament in the bishop's room. Ayliffe.
- [Vacances, Fr.] Time of leisure; relaxation; intermission; time unengaged.
If, sometimes, each other's eyes we meet,
Those little vacancies from toil are sweet. Dryd. St. of In.The daily intervals of time and vacancies from necessary labour, together with the one day in seven in the christian world, allow sufficient time. Watts.
- Listlessness; emptiness of thought.
When alone, or in company, they sit still without doing any thing, I like it worse; for all dispositions to idleness or vacancy, even before they are habits, are dangerous. Wotton.