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devoid

UK/dɪˈvɔɪd/US/dɪˈvɔɪd/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,515 of 15,258leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Devoid means entirely without a particular quality. Not short of it — completely lacking it.

It only ever appears with of, and it always follows the noun it describes, so a face devoid of expression rather than a devoid face. That fixed grammar is worth learning, since the word cannot be used any other way. It is formal and rather damning, and devoid of charm, devoid of merit and devoid of any sense of humour are all standard insults in review writing. Its relative is void, meaning empty.

Definitions of devoid

  1. 1adjectivedevoidCompletely lacking a particular quality, used with of.C1

    “His voice was devoid of any warmth at all.”

Where it comes from

  1. Old French

    desvuidier — to empty out

  2. English, today

    devoid

From obsolete Middle English - verb devoiden, from Old French desvuidier (“to empty out”) (compare French dévider).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 11 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

devoid in the wild

  • A smaller crater is located just to the west-southwest of this centrally located formation, but the flat interior floor is otherwise devoid of features of interest.

    Ellison (crater)

  • The early morning block ended in January 2009, leaving the channel virtually devoid of music related programming for more than two months, until the introduction of AMTV.

    FNMTV

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.