Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Vacancy

Vacancy , noun

[Compare French 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.
(a)
Empty space; vacuity; vacuum.
How is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy? — Shakespeare
(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. — Shakespeare
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.