From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishempty-handedˌempty-ˈhanded adjective NONE/NOTHINGwithout getting what you hoped or expected to getreturn/come back etc empty-handed I spent all morning looking for a suitable present, but came home empty-handed.
Examples from the Corpus
empty-handed• Hearing police sirens in the distance, the robber was forced to leave the bank empty-handed.• After a great deal of hunting around with flashlights, the plain-clothes policemen were forced to go away empty-handed.• Mandru's agent had been outbid, however, and he'd been reluctant to return home empty-handed.• She banged his head on the till and slammed the drawer on his hand, before he ran off almost empty-handed.• The day will end with a prize draw, but no-one will go home empty-handed.• Forty minutes later he was still empty-handed and beginning to panic.• More often than not he came back to his apartment empty-handed and crestfallen.• Unusually, the martial art of kali teaches the use of weapons first and empty-handed techniques last.return/come back etc empty-handed• I watched as he raced the length of the yard and came back empty-handed.• Soon, Banjo comes back empty-handed.• He came back empty-handed, then set off again with his son. 