Link Centre Dictionary

vacate

va·cate

UK/veɪˈkeɪt/ US/ˈveɪ.keɪt/ fairly common

verb

1.

leave (a job, post, post, or position) voluntarily

  • “She vacated the position when she got pregnant”
  • “The chairman resigned when he was found to have misappropriated funds”
Synonyms
2.

leave behind empty; move out of

  • “You must vacate your office by tonight”
Synonyms
3.

annul by recalling or rescinding

  • “He revoked the ban on smoking”
  • “lift an embargo”
  • “vacate a death sentence”
Synonyms

Origin

Originally used in the legal sense "to annul", a denominal from Early Modern English vacat (“legal annulment”), a development from Middle English vacat (“absence or cancellation noted in a register”), from Latin vacat, third-person singular present active indicative of vacō (“to be idle; to be unoccupied”, literally “to be empty”). The primary modern sense "to move out" likely developed under the influence of older borrowing vacant (“unoccupied”), in combination with the Early Modern use of vacate to refer to the termination of official appointments to office, which would leave those position vacant.

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.