> I think this is an artifact of Python not having an empty set literal.
> [snip]
>
When both use the constructor call or both use a literal, the
> difference is far smaller. I'd call this one a wash.
Ah, good catch. I hadn't considered that it would make a substantial difference, but that makes sense. Here's an additional comparison between "{}" and "dict()" to confirm it:
>>> timeit.timeit("{}", number=100_000_000)
2.1038335599987477
>>> timeit.timeit("dict()", number=100_000_000)
10.225583500003268
Some more in-depth comparisons might be required for addition of single items to the containers. I might experiment further with this at some point in the next week or so, likely with implementing proper tests that omit the time to initialize the container.