虚きょ辞じ

noun

falsehood; untrue statement

General term for a false or insincere statement; somewhat formal or literary.

• 彼かれの言こと葉ばは虚きょ辞じに過すぎなかった。

  His words were nothing more than falsehoods.

noun

syntactic expletive

Linguistics term for a word that fills a syntactic slot without adding meaning, such as 'it' in 'It is raining'.

• 英えい語ごの「It is raining」の「It」は虚きょ辞じと呼よばれる。

  The 'It' in English 'It is raining' is called a syntactic expletive.