Meaning & use
empty promise
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Meaning
nouncountable
a promise that is not kept or cannot be trusted, so it has no real value.
Grammar: Countable: an empty promise, empty promises. Often used in the plural.
Patterns
- an empty promise
- make empty promises
- empty promises about something
The company made empty promises about pay rises that never happened.
She saw his apology as just another empty promise.
Voters are tired of empty promises from politicians.
Word forms
| plural | empty promises |
|---|
Common combinations
- make an empty promise
- He made an empty promise to help, then never called.
- empty promises about
- The campaign was full of empty promises about tax cuts.
- just another empty promise
- To her, the new plan was just another empty promise.
- a string of empty promises
- The manager gave us a string of empty promises.
Synonyms and how they differ
- false promise
- Suggests the person knew it was untrue when they made it; an empty promise may be sincere but never kept.
- broken promise
- Focuses on the fact that the promise was made and then not kept; it does not say the promise was worthless from the start.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: empty promise or empty words?
empty promise vs empty words
Empty words are meaningless talk in general, not a specific promise. An empty promise is a particular promise that is not kept.
Practice
The government promised to build new schools, but nothing happened. This is an example of ______.
Choose one answer.
The sentence refers to one specific promise, so the singular 'an empty promise' is correct. 'Empty promises' is plural and would need 'example of empty promises' (without 'an'), but the context is one promise. 'An empty promise' is wrong because 'empty' starts with a vowel sound, so we use 'an'. 'Empty promising' is not a noun phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “empty promise”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.