English
evacuate
Evacuate comes from Latin ēvacuātus ‘emptied out’, and goes back to vacuō ‘make empty’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvacuō‘make empty’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEēvacuō‘to empty out, evacuate’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEēvacuātus‘emptied out’perfect passive participle of ēvacuō
- Englishearliest quotation 1622evacuate
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEvacuō‘make empty’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEēvacuō‘to empty out, evacuate’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEēvacuātus‘emptied out’perfect passive participle of ēvacuō
- Englishearliest quotation 1622evacuate
Earliest quotation: 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam: “it would not evacuate a marriage after cohabitation and…”
first attested First attested in 1526 (as stated in the etymology)
The story
First attested in 1526; borrowed from Latin ēvacuātus, the perfect passive participle of ēvacuō (‘to empty out, evacuate’), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- ‘to be/become empty’
want, various, waste, variety, vast, vary, variable, vacation, vanity, vain, vacant, vanish, waning, wane, vacate, varicella, evanescent, 26 more
through Latin vacuus ‘empty, vacant, unoccupied’
Today it means
verb To leave or withdraw from; to quit; to retire from.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin vacuō / evacuate