Word a Day
vacuum
What does vacuum mean?
vacuum (noun): the absence of matter.
Definition: Princeton WordNet 3.1.
How do you pronounce vacuum?
/ˈvækjum/ (IPA, American English). The app reads every word aloud.
Where does vacuum come from?
Borrowed from New Latin vacuum (“vacuum”), a subsense of Classical Latin vacuum (“empty space”), a substantivised form of vacuus (“empty”).
Etymology: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Test yourself: do you know “vacuum”?
Tap an answer to check it. The same questions the app asks.
What does “vacuum” mean?
a period of 100 years
Not quite: that's what century means.
any specific behavior
Not quite: that's what activity means.
an adult female human
Not quite: that's what woman means.
the absence of matter
Right! That's what “vacuum” means.
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