- Who changed the way vacumn was spelled 40 years ago?
According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, vacuum entered English in the 1540s directly from Latin as the substantivized, neuter form of the adjective vacuus The earliest use was as an abstract, non-count noun denoting the emptiness of space, later any void or empty space, for which one could use the Latin plural vacua or simply tack on
- pronunciation - Why is vacuum pronounced [ˈvæ. kjuːm] and not [ˈvæ . . .
+1 It seems that vacuum is the odd word out when placed in a lineup with (for example) continuum, individuum, menstruum, and residuum I don't know why the -uum in vacuum came to be pronounced differently from the -uum in the others, but to judge from the pronunciation offered in John Walker's A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language (1807), 'twas not always thus
- Can I call a vacuum cleaner cleaner a vacuum cleaner?
If a 'vacuum cleaner cleaner' is a machine for cleaning vacuum cleaners, then the person who cleans the vacuum cleaner cleaner would be a 'vacuum cleaner cleaner cleaner'
- Where is the root morpheme in Modern English evacuate and vacuum?
Clearly they are related through Latin, from e- and vacare (out of and to empty) and from vacuus (empty), and in Latin the shared morpheme is vac- More interesting may be the relationships with vain, vast and waste which have similar origins in Latin or proto-Indo-European, but which have more specific meanings in modern English
- differences - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
Perfect vacuum does not exist - there will always be some energy, some particles manifesting themselves spontaneously from quantum uncertainty, but generally lack of matter, including air is considered vacuum
- Electronic vs. electric - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
The vacuum tube was soon replaced by semi-conductor materials The technology was named solid state electronics because, semi-conductor materials, like vacuum, are actually insulators that can conduct more or less when activated
- Gap, void or vacuum? - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
Considering their primary meanings, vacuum is used more often in a scientific context, in which case it means space completely or partially absent of any matter air It is a scientific term, while void can be used non-technically in a more abstract sense, but it can also be used when talking about empty space in a non-scientific way
- meaning - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
The Cambridge Dictionary offers an even more narrow definition, where set has the specific meaning of "television set" I am wondering what the etymology of this term is here, and I have a guess: I believe that because televisions--and radios before them-- were constructed principally using a set of vacuum tubes that the set is a sort of metonym
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