evacuate

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English evacuaten,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin ēvacuātus, the past participle of ēvacuō (“to empty out”),^{[3][5][2][6][7]} formed from ē- (“out”) (a form of ex-) and vacuus (“empty”),^[3][6][4][8] itself from vacō (“to be empty”).^[4] Watkins, as cited by Etymonline, takes vacuus from Proto-Indo-European *wak-, an extended form of Proto-Indo-European *eue- (“to leave, abandon, give out”).^[3] In classical Latin the verb is found only in Pliny, of emptying the bowels;^[6][3] the Vulgate and later legal texts used it for "to make void, nullify",^[6] and Medieval Latin for removing contents.^[8] It replaced the Middle English verb evacuen, recorded before 1400, which was borrowed from Old French evacuer.^[5][3] The Latin adjective is the source of vacuum.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A medical term: to expel humours from the body, before 1425, in a translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[2][3][5] The OED's first record is from 1526, in the sense "to make void, annul", which it calls the earliest sense in English,^[6] and Barnhart dates the verb in the sense of emptying the body to 1542.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word began in medicine, for ridding the body of humours or other unwanted matter,^[9][6][2] and was used from 1526 to 1785 in religious and legal language for annulling or making void.^[6] The general sense of emptying a vessel or clearing out its contents dates from 1542, and the figurative one of emptying a term or idea of its meaning from 1593.^[6] An army evacuated a town or fortress it gave up from 1710,^[6][3] and anyone from 1809 could evacuate a place they left.^[6] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins dates the sense of removing inhabitants to the mid-17th century (the OED has it from 1607 to 1753),^[9][6] but the sense of moving people from danger to safety is from 1934, with the bombing of the Second World War;^[3][9] it gave the noun evacuee (1934), from French évacué.^[5][10]

Timeline

• before 1425 – to expel humours from the body.^[2][3]
• 1526 – to make void, annul (obsolete by 1785).^[6]
• 1542 – to empty, especially the bowels or another organ.^[6][5]
• 1593 – figurative, to empty of meaning or value.^[6]
• 1607 – to discharge excrement.^[6]
• 1710 – of an army, to withdraw from a place.^[6][3]
• 1809 – to leave or withdraw from a place.^[6]
• 1934 – to remove people from danger to a safer place.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To leave a dangerous place, or to remove people from it to a place of safety: Residents were evacuated before the river burst its banks.^[11][12][3]
2. Of troops, to withdraw from a town, fortress or position.^[6][12]
3. To empty something by removing its contents; to create a vacuum in a vessel.^[11][12][6]
4. (physiology) To discharge waste from the body, especially the bowels; to excrete.^[11][6]
5. To deprive a term or idea of its content or value.^[12][6]
6. (obsolete, 1526–1785) To make void; to annul.^[6][12]

Word family

• evacuative
• evacuator
• evacuee

Related words

• evacuation
• vacuum
• vacant
• vacate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster