empty vessel
Container without contents
Empty vessel refers to a container with nothing in it, but the phrase appears most often in the proverb "empty vessels make the most noise"—meaning people with the least knowledge or substance tend to talk the loudest.
The expression also describes a person lacking ideas, purpose, or inner life: Without her work, she felt like an empty vessel.
In some spiritual contexts, being an empty vessel is positive—a state of openness ready to receive wisdom or divine presence.
- hollowEmpty within
- hollow shellCasing lacking interior substance
- voidWithout legal effect
- containerThing for storing items
- shellHard outer covering
vacant · jar · pot · blank · blank slate · husk · receptacle · unfilled · barren · bowl · echoing · sounding board · dead air · hull · cavern · socket · drum · gourd
- emptinessvoid, vacuum, nothingness, blank, vacancy
- East Asian Culturechopsticks, yin and yang, tea ceremony, origami, qi
- blank slatestabula rasa, clean slate, blank page, blank canvas, clean sheet
empty vesseldeep thinker
One who reflects profoundly
polymath · oracle · sage · learned scholar · intellectual
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