Evacuated

How to spell evacuated

9 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce evacuated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does evacuated mean?

1. verbRemoved people from a place of danger, or left a place empty for safety reasons.

Evacuated in a sentence

• The residents were evacuated before the storm reached the coast.

• Firefighters evacuated the entire office block within minutes.

Where does evacuated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb evacuare, which meant 'to empty out' or 'to make hollow'. It was built from the prefix e- (a form of ex-, meaning 'out') and vacuus, the Latin adjective for 'empty', the same root that gives us 'vacuum' and 'vacant'. In its earliest English use during the 1500s it carried a strongly medical sense, describing the emptying of the body or of fluids and humours. Over time the meaning broadened to the now-familiar idea of clearing people out of a dangerous place, while the underlying notion of leaving something empty stayed intact. Remembering that the heart of the word is vacu, the same 'empty' element seen in 'vacuum', helps fix the spelling and explains why it carries a single c followed by u.

How the word is built

• e- (ex-: out)
• vacu (from vacuus: empty)
• -ate (verb)
• -ed (past tense)