Meaning & use
evacuate
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To move people away from a dangerous place to a safer one.
Grammar: Takes an object: evacuate the residents.
Patterns
- evacuate someone from something
- evacuate someone to something
The coast guard evacuated the residents from the flooded village.
They evacuated the children to a school inland.
The hospital was evacuated after the fire alarm.
verbintransitive
To leave a place because it is dangerous.
Grammar: No object; often used with from: evacuate from the building.
Patterns
- evacuate from something
- evacuate to something
Thousands evacuated from the city before the hurricane hit.
We had to evacuate to higher ground when the river rose.
verbtransitive or intransitivemedical
To empty something, especially the bowels, of waste matter.
Grammar: Used medically; can be transitive (evacuate the bowels) or intransitive (the patient evacuated).
Patterns
- evacuate the bowels
The medicine helps evacuate the bowels.
The patient was unable to evacuate without assistance.
Word forms
| third person singular | evacuates |
|---|---|
| past tense | evacuated |
| past participle | evacuated |
| -ing form | evacuating |
Common combinations
- evacuate the building
- Firefighters evacuated the building within minutes.
- evacuate the area
- Police ordered residents to evacuate the area.
- evacuate to safety
- The team was evacuated to safety by helicopter.
- evacuate from
- They evacuated from the war zone last week.
Synonyms and how they differ
- clear
- Clear means to empty a place of people, often for security reasons, while evacuate emphasizes moving people away from danger.
- withdraw
- Withdraw means to pull back, often used for military forces; evacuate focuses on moving people out of a dangerous area.
Opposites
Word family
- evacuation noun
- The act of moving people away from a dangerous place.
- evacuee noun
- A person who has been evacuated.
Commonly confused: evacuate or vacate?
evacuate vs vacate
Vacate means to leave a place voluntarily, often because your time there is up; evacuate is used when there is danger.
Practice
The authorities decided to ______ the residents from the path of the volcano.
Choose one answer.
Evacuate is the verb meaning to move people away from danger. Vacate means to leave voluntarily, evacuation is a noun, and evacuee is a person.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “evacuate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.