diff --git a/spacy/vocab.pyx b/spacy/vocab.pyx
index 0598860a1..3dfa1d658 100644
--- a/spacy/vocab.pyx
+++ b/spacy/vocab.pyx
@@ -82,6 +82,8 @@ cdef class Vocab:
         '''Get a pointer to a LexemeC from the lexicon, creating a new Lexeme
         if necessary, using memory acquired from the given pool.  If the pool
         is the lexicon's own memory, the lexeme is saved in the lexicon.'''
+        if string == u'':
+            return &EMPTY_LEXEME
         cdef LexemeC* lex
         cdef hash_t key = hash_string(string)
         lex = <LexemeC*>self._by_hash.get(key)