empty word

noun

1. (especially in Chinese grammar) a word or morpheme that has no lexical meaning and that functions as a grammatical link or marker, rather than as a contentive.

Word History and Origins

Origin of empty word¹

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

“In Haiti today, democracy is an empty word.”

From Washington Post

And there’s a tone of end-times mourning to Coco Fusco’s “Your Eyes Will Be an Empty Word,” a narrated video tour of Hart Island, the vast public cemetery in the East River that has, for over a century, received the bodies of New York City’s unclaimed dead, now including Covid victims.

From New York Times

Without transparency — and in the submarine deal there was none — alliance, in the French view, becomes an empty word.

From New York Times

“Courage” is no empty word here.

From Washington Post

“Biden,” he wrote on Nov. 8, is “an empty word politician that will never be president. They have promoted destruction for 4 years now tearing cities apart, supporting blm, antifa. Bogus impeachment on made up garbage, using covid as a political tool. Your dealing with strait evil who only think of the present and who don’t acknowledge eternity.”

From Washington Post