vacuum
noun
- empty volume with no air or other matter
- cleaning device using low pressure to create a suction effect
verb
- use a vacuum cleaner
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈvæ.kjuːm/ / /ˈvæ.kjuː.əm/
noun
Etymology: 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.
- 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, colorless sulphur hexafluoride gas, held in place by carefully managed mass effect fields.”
- 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”
- Ellipsis of vacuum cleaner.
- A spacetime having tensors of zero magnitude.
- A ground state of a quantum field or of local spacetime, or more abstractly the lowest-energy state of a system.
- A ground state of a quantum field or of local spacetime, or more abstractly the lowest-energy state of a system.
- 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.”
- 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.”
“Right I'm off to practice my vacuum - suck in those stomachs now!”
verb
Etymology: 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.
- To clean (something) with a vacuum cleaner.
““Who in the world cleans an attic? That's like vacuuming a shed.””
- To use a vacuum cleaner.
- 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.”