in a vacuum
idiom
: separated from outside events or influences
The group was operating in a vacuum, cut off from the rest of the world.
The city's riots did not happen in a vacuum. They were caused by recent political events.
Examples of in a vacuum in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
That's not the same as insisting on authorial originality, some imagined notion that students should produce prose entirely on their own, in a vacuum, untouched by outside influence.
—
Newsweek Staff, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 June 2025
Once experiments are live, results flow directly into the same analytics infrastructure that tracks overall product usage, ensuring teams aren’t evaluating changes in a vacuum.
—Dan Rogers, Forbes.com, 16 June 2025
Energy goes negative, at least momentarily, in quantum phenomena such as the Casimir effect, where (experiments show) two metal plates attract each other in a vacuum.
—Charlie Wood, Quanta Magazine, 27 May 2025
And Knick fans are reminded that Dolan being one of the owners in town who’s never won a thing — in two sports — hasn’t happened in a vacuum, and that means whether Rose was a smart hire or not.
—Mike Lupica, New York Daily News, 14 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for in a vacuum
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Newsweek Staff, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 June 2025
Once experiments are live, results flow directly into the same analytics infrastructure that tracks overall product usage, ensuring teams aren’t evaluating changes in a vacuum.
—Dan Rogers, Forbes.com, 16 June 2025
Energy goes negative, at least momentarily, in quantum phenomena such as the Casimir effect, where (experiments show) two metal plates attract each other in a vacuum.
—Charlie Wood, Quanta Magazine, 27 May 2025
And Knick fans are reminded that Dolan being one of the owners in town who’s never won a thing — in two sports — hasn’t happened in a vacuum, and that means whether Rose was a smart hire or not.
—Mike Lupica, New York Daily News, 14 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for in a vacuum
Cite this Entry
“In a vacuum.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in%20a%20vacuum. Accessed 9 Jul. 2025.
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