Other forms: vacuums
A vacuum is the machine that sucks dust and crumbs off the floor. Run the vacuum, vacuum the carpet, a bagless vacuum.
It does not suck: it lowers the pressure inside so that outside air pushes in, carrying dust with it, which is why one will not work in space. In physics a vacuum is space with nothing in it, and a perfect one has never been made. Note that the Latin means empty.
1nounvacuumA machine that sucks dust from floors.
“I'll run the vacuum over the living room before the guests arrive.”
2nounspaceSpace with nothing in it.
“Sound cannot travel through a vacuum, so space is completely silent.”
3verbcleanTo clean floors and carpets with a machine that sucks up the dirt.
“I vacuum the stairs every Saturday morning.”
Also accepted in games: vacuum cleaner, hoover
Latin vacuum means empty space, from vacuus, empty. Vacant and vacation come from the same emptiness.
la-cla
vacuum — empty space
New Latin
vacuum — vacuum
English, today
vacuum
Built from
New Latin vacuum (“vacuum”), a subsense of la-cla vacuum (“empty space”), a substantivised form of vacuus (“empty”); related to vacō (“to be empty”). The exercise sense comes from analogy to the sucking action of a vacuum cleaner.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA