evacuate [LME] The basic sense of evacuate is ‘empty’. It comes from Latin evacuare from e- ‘out’ and vacuus ‘empty’, the source of *vacuum. It was originally a medical term, referring to getting rid of unwanted substances in the body. It developed the sense of ‘remove inhabitants’ in the mid 17th century, but did not mean ‘remove people to a safer place’ until bombing started in the Second World War. Evacuation [LME] followed much the same course of development.