empty-handed

We left the store, him empty-handed, me with Sally Rooney’s “Beautiful World, Where Are You.”

“I’m empty-handed, except with a collection of memories stimulated just in the last hour and a half by walking through the exhibition they’ve so ingeniously assembled.”

Congressional Democrats traveled to El Salvador to push for information about the detainees and came back empty-handed.

One of the most watched TV shows of the year, The Traitors, went home empty-handed after being beaten by I'm a Celebrity in the reality competition category.

Moments later, a businessman entered his office seeking a withdrawal amounting to $500 to pay his bills; he too left empty-handed.