vacuously

English

Etymology tree

English vacuous

Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der.

Proto-Germanic *līkąder.

Proto-Germanic *-līkaz

Proto-Germanic *-ê

Proto-Germanic *-līkê

Proto-West Germanic *-līkē

Old English -līċe

Middle English -ly

English -ly

English vacuously

From vacuous + -ly.

vacuously (comparative more vacuously, superlative most vacuously)

In a vacuous manner, lacking thought.
- 1915, Jack London, The Little Lady of the Big House:
  Here, in distress that was consternation, and in fear that was panic, excitedly bobbed up and down a cowboy in bearskin chaps, vacuously repeating the exclamation, "Oh God! Oh God!" […]
- 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 211:
  He scowled vacuously, keeping at bay a horrible enlightenment on the mechanism of effort, which must drive into being a resistance equal to itself.
(logic) Because of being a vacuous truth.
The statement is vacuously true because P is false and P implies Q.

lacking thought

because of being a vacuous truth