Link Centre Dictionary

vacuum

va·cuum

UK/ˈvæ.kjuːm/ US/ˈvæ.kjuː.əm/ fairly common

noun

1.

the absence of matter

Synonyms
2.

an empty area or space

  • “the huge desert voids”
  • “the emptiness of outer space”
  • “without their support he”
3.

a region empty of matter

Synonyms
4.

an electrical home appliance that cleans by suction

verb

1.

clean with a vacuum cleaner

  • “vacuum the carpets”

Origin

Borrowed from New Latin vacuum (“vacuum”), a subsense of Classical Latin vacuum (“empty space”), a substantivised form of vacuus (“empty”); related to vacāre (“to be empty”). The exercise sense comes from analogy to the sucking action of a vacuum cleaner.

Phrases

  • abdominal vacuum
  • bee vacuum
  • central vacuum
  • double Kerr vacuum
  • false vacuum
  • high vacuum
  • in a vacuum
  • Kerns-Wild vacuum

Related words

Word family

Narrower terms

Part of

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.