Definition of the word vacuously

The word "vacuously" originated in the field of logic and mathematics in the late 19th century. It refers to a statement that is true because it says nothing meaningful or contains a contradiction. The term "vacuous truth" is used to describe a statement that is always true, regardless of the values of its variables, because the conditions it sets out to satisfy are impossible or never occur. For instance, consider the statement "All green nose-hairs make a person happy." Since there are no people (or animals at all) with green nose-hairs, this statement is vacuously true - it is true because it cannot be false, but it is not a meaningful statement to make in the first place. The prefix "vacu-" comes from the Latin "vacuus," meaning "empty" or "void." In this context, it highlights that the statement's truth value is based on some sort of emptiness or absurdity. "Vacuously" is used more broadly to describe situations that are meaningless or inapplicable due to some kind of emptiness or absurdity. For example, one may say "She laughed vacuously at the joke" to indicate that the person laughed in response to a joke that wasn't funny, or "His political platform was vacuously empty" to suggest that his proposals contained no real substance.