Etymologically
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evacuate

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Pronunciation

  • /ɪˈvæk.ju.eɪt/[1]

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

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