Va"can*cy (?), n.; pl. Vacancies (#). [Cf. F. vacance.]
1.
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.
Sir H. Wotton.
2.
That which is vacant.
Specifically: --
(a)
Empty space; vacuity; vacuum.
How is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy?
Shak.
(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.
Milton.
No interim, not a minute's vacancy.
Shak.
Those little vacancies from toil are sweet.
Dryden.
(d)
A place or post unfilled; an unoccupied office; as, a vacancy in the senate, in a school, etc.
<-- an unrented apartment, room in a hotel, motel, etc. -->
© Webster 1913.