evacuation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English evacuacioun, borrowed from Late Latin ēvacuātiō (“an emptying”), a noun of action from ēvacuō (“to empty”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} partly through evacuation and evacuation.^[3][4][7] The Latin verb is formed from ē-, "out", and vacuus (“empty”).^[2][8] In classical Latin it is found only in Pliny, of emptying the bowels; the Vulgate and later law books used it figuratively, "to make void, nullify".^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In medicine, the clearing of the body or an organ of excess or morbid matter, the humours: c1400, in Lanfranc's Cirurgie,^[2] before 1400 in Barnhart, for the discharge of humours;^[7] Etymonline notes that it was at first mostly the letting of blood.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From medicine the word passed to the natural discharge of waste from the body, especially the bowels (?1533), and to the matter discharged (1625).^[2][8] The general sense, the emptying of a container or the removal of its contents, dates from 1593, in Hooker.^[2] Following the figurative Latin use, evacuation also meant nullification from 1649,^[2] a sense Johnson (1755) gave as "abolition; nullification", besides a discharge that leaves a vacancy, as in Hale's "the vast evacuations of men that England hath had".^[9][2] The military sense, the withdrawal of troops from a place, is recorded from 1710 in the London Gazette,^[2][3] and the removal of people from a place of danger by 1854.^[3][10]

Timeline

• c1400 – the medical clearing of the body.^[2][3]
• ?1533 – the discharge of waste matter from the body.^[2]
• 1593 – the emptying of a container.^[2]
• 1625 – the matter discharged.^[2]
• 1649 – nullification.^[2]
• 1710 – (military) the withdrawal of troops.^[2][3]
• 1854 – the removal of people from danger.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The removal of people from a dangerous place to a safe one: The flood forced the evacuation of three villages.
2. (military) The withdrawal of troops from a place.
3. The act of emptying something or clearing it of its contents, such as removing the air from a vessel.
4. (physiology) The discharge of waste from the body, especially from the bowels; defecation; also, the matter discharged.

Word family

• nonevacuation

Related words

• evacuee
• evacuate
• vacuum
• vacant
• void

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press