Word
vacate
Phoneticsva·cate
US/ˈveɪkeɪt/
UK/vˈeɪkeɪt/
Definition
v. to leave a place so that it is empty and available for someone else to use. You often hear this when people move out of a house or hotel room.
v. to leave a premises or position, making it empty or available for others. Often used in legal or formal contexts regarding property or official roles.
Examples
“Guests must vacate their rooms by noon.”
“The court ordered the tenants to vacate the property within thirty days after they failed to pay the rent.”
“The outgoing CEO agreed to vacate his office immediately following the board's decision, ensuring a smooth transition for the interim leadership team during the restructuring phase.”
Examples
simple
“Guests must vacate their rooms by noon.”
contextual
“The court ordered the tenants to vacate the property within thirty days after they failed to pay the rent.”
complex
“The outgoing CEO agreed to vacate his office immediately following the board's decision, ensuring a smooth transition for the interim leadership team during the restructuring phase.”
Usage
The verb is transitive and requires a direct object, typically a physical space or a formal position.
Pitfall
The family vacated from the house.
The family vacated the house.
Vacate is a transitive verb; it takes a direct object without the preposition 'from'.
Etymology
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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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englishreference.com/q/vacate