Idioms

in a vacuum

in a vacuum

In total isolation; having no interaction with or connection to other people, places, or actions. Your actions don't occur in a vacuum; they affect everyone else here, too! Being in such a remote, rural town can sometimes feel like living in a vacuum. Crippling anxiety like this doesn't just spring up in a vacuum. I think something traumatic happened to this little girl over the summer.
See also: vacuum
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

in a vacuum

COMMON If something exists or happens in a vacuum, it seems to exist or happen separately from the things that you would expect it to be connected with. Property values do not exist in a vacuum. The market value of a house can fall if the biggest employer in town closes or a noisy club opens next door. Such decisions do not occur in a political vacuum, but have serious political implications both at home and abroad.
See also: vacuum
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

do something in a ˈvacuum

do something alone or separately from other people, events, etc., especially when there should be a connection: No novel is written in a vacuum. There are always influences from past writers.
See also: something, vacuum
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
See also:
References in classic literature
But, when we arrive in the moon, during its fifteen days of night at either face, we shall have leisure to make the experiment, for our satellite lies in a vacuum."
View in context
This led to their working at night, by light produced in a vacuum by means of Ruhmkorff's apparatus, which threw an artificial brightness into the depths of the Columbiad.
View in context
However, citing Andrews,(12) the court observed that the hypothetical sale should not be constructed in a vacuum, isolated from the actual facts that affect the value of the stock in the decedent's hands.
"Swing vote" attributes of transferred stock: implications for minority interest discounts
Hutt, who has been using break-even analysis with small business owners for 12 years, laments that many entrepreneurs plan for their business in a vacuum.
Business management: planning for profit
Moreover, Newton showed that many of the existing ideas were incorrect--Descartes had the notion, for example, that the planets move not in a vacuum but in a sea of material that swirls in huge vortices.
Celebrating Newton: the legacy and legend of Isaac Newton live on 300 years after the publication of his masterpiece, the Principia
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