Word.ws English Dictionary

vacuum

Syllables: va·cu·um/ˈvæ.kjuːm/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

dated/ˈvæ.kjuː.əm/

vacuum noun: a region of space that contains no matter. Also the ellipsis of vacuum cleaner.

Noun

vacuum (plural vacuums or (rare, formal, see notes) vacua)

  1. A region of space that contains no matter.
    • The Wards are open-topped, with skyscrapers rising from the superstructure. Towers are sealed against vacuum, as the breathable atmosphere envelope is only maintained to a height of about seven meters. The atmosphere is contained by the centrifugal force of rotation and a "membrane" of dense...2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel Station: Wards Codex entry
    Synonyms:
    vacancy, void
    Antonyms:
    plenum
  2. The condition of rarefaction, or reduction of pressure below that of the atmosphere, in a vessel, such as the condenser of a steam engine, which is nearly exhausted of air or steam, etc.
    • a vacuum of 26 inches of mercury, or 13 pounds per square inch
  3. A spacetime having tensors of zero magnitude.
  4. A ground state of a quantum field or of local spacetime, or more abstractly the lowest-energy state of a system.
    1. (string theory) A description of spacetime resulting from a particular compactification of spatial dimensions.
  5. An emptiness in life created by a loss of a person who was close, or of an occupation.
    • Henrietta soon found a terrible vacuum left, by the letters in which she used to pour forth every feeling and thought to her uncle.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 82–83
  6. An exercise in which one draws their abdomen towards the spine.
    • Abs show up in a most-muscular shot, a vacuum shot, the hands-behind-head compulsory ab shot, twisting poses, and so on.1985, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 508
    • Right I'm off to practice my vacuum - suck in those stomachs now!1997 January 6, John, “I'm 14; How do I start bodybuilding?”, in misc.fitness.weights (Usenet)

Verb

vacuum (third-person singular simple present vacuums, present participle vacuuming, simple past and past participle vacuumed)

  1. (transitive) To clean (something) with a vacuum cleaner.
    • “Who in the world cleans an attic? That's like vacuuming a shed.”2016, Janice M. Whiteaker, Run
    Synonyms:
    hoover
  2. (intransitive) To use a vacuum cleaner.
    Synonyms:
    to do the hoovering, to hoover
  3. (transitive) To optimise a database or database table by physically removing deleted tuples.
    • But the advantage of an auto-vacuumed database is that when B-tree pages are no longer needed, they are moved to the end of the database file and then the database file is truncated, thus returning the unused pages back to the filesystem.2010, Ivan Litovski, Richard Maynard, Inside Symbian SQL: A Mobile Developer's Guide to SQLite, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 337

Also used as

vacuum is also the ellipsis of vacuum cleaner.

vacuum meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

vacuum in Hindi

region of space that contains no matter
निर्वात nirvāt

vacuum in Tamil

region of space that contains no matter
வெற்றிடம் veṟṟiṭam

vacuum in Marathi

निर्वात, निर्वातता, व्हॅक्यूम

vacuum in Urdu

ویکیوم, ویکیوم کرنا
More languagesFewer languages
vacuum in Bengali
ভ্যাকুয়াম, শূন্যস্থান, ভ্যাকুয়ামিং করা
vacuum in Telugu
శూన్యం śūnyaṁ
vacuum in Malayalam
ശൂന്യത śūnyata
vacuum in Kannada
ನಿರ್ವಾತ, ವ್ಯಾಕ್ಯೂಮ್, ನಿರ್ವಾತದ
vacuum in Punjabi
ਵੈਕਯੂਮ, ਵੈਕਯੂਮ ਕਰਨਾ, ਵੈਕਯੂਮ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
vacuum in Gujarati
શૂન્યાવકાશ, વેક્યૂમ, વેક્યૂમ કરવા માટે
vacuum in Odia
ଶୂନ୍ଯ଼ସ୍ଥାନ, ୱାକ୍ଯ଼ୁମ୍ କରିବା
vacuum in Nepali
भ्याकुम, निर्वात, भ्याकुम गर्न
vacuum in Tagalog
awangin
vacuum in Arabic
خَلَاء ḵalāʔ, فَرَاغ farāḡ, فَضَاء faḍāʔ
vacuum in Malay
hampagas, vakum
vacuum in Indonesian
hampa udara, vakum
vacuum in Thai
สุญญากาศ sǔn-yaa-gàat
vacuum in Vietnamese
chân không

Examples of vacuum in a sentence

  • Towers are sealed against vacuum, as the breathable atmosphere envelope is only maintained to a height of about seven meters.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel Station: Wards Codex entry:
  • When I do the 'gut vacuum' exercise the abdominal wall seems to return to normal size, as far as I can tell under the flab.2010 January 7, Silent Stone, “Want to start, have a few questions for now.”, in misc.fitness.weights (Usenet):
  • Blessed with round muscle bellies and a phenomenal structure, he also performed a vacuum pose on stage.2022 October 10, Aaromal Maanas, “2022 Tsunami Nutrition Pro Results and Recap”, in Sportskeeda, archived from the original on 23 Oct 2022:

All 40 example sentences with vacuum

Synonyms of vacuum

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of vacuum

Forms of vacuum

Noun
pluralvacuums
plural error-unknown-tag formal (rare)vacua
alternative form (rare)vacuüm
Verb
third-person singular presentvacuums
present participlevacuuming
past participlevacuumed
pastvacuumed

Plural of vacuum: vacuums

Origin of vacuum

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.

Words formed from vacuum

Phrases with vacuum

28 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about vacuum

What does vacuum mean?
Vacuum means a region of space that contains no matter.
What is vacuum in Hindi?
Vacuum in Hindi is निर्वात (nirvāt). See Vacuum meaning in Hindi.
How do you use vacuum in a sentence?
Towers are sealed against vacuum, as the breathable atmosphere envelope is only maintained to a height of about seven meters.
What part of speech is vacuum?
Vacuum can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce vacuum?
Vacuum is pronounced /ˈvæ.kjuːm/.
What is the plural of vacuum?
The plural of vacuum is vacuums.

Words near vacuum in the dictionary

  1. vacutained
  2. vacutainer
  3. vacutainers
  4. vacutome
  5. vacutomes
  6. vacuum
  7. vacuum activities
  8. vacuum activity
  9. vacuum airship
  10. vacuum airships
  11. vacuum aspiration

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vacuum (page history and authors); vacuum (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vacuum (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-vacuum.ogg.

Cite this entry: “vacuum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vacuum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.