evacuation

American  

[ih-vak-yoo-ey-shuhn] / ɪˌvæk juˈeɪ ʃən /

noun

• evacuations
  plural

1. the act or process of evacuating, or the condition of being evacuated; discharge or expulsion, as of contents.

2. Physiology. discharge, as of waste matter through the excretory passages, especially from the bowels.

3. something evacuated or discharged.

4. the removal of persons or things from an endangered area.

5. clearance by removal of troops, equipment, etc.

6. the withdrawal or removal of troops, civilians, etc.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonevacuation
  noun
• reevacuation
  noun
• evacuative
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• evacuations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of evacuation

1350–1400; Middle English evacuacioun < Late Latin ēvacuātion- (stem of ēvacuātiō ). See evacuate, -ion

Explanation

An evacuation happens when people are removed from or leave a dangerous place. An approaching hurricane sometimes results in the evacuation of islands and coastal towns. A fire drill or bomb threat can cause the evacuation of a school building, and during World War II there were frequent evacuations of buildings and areas of cities including London, when people hurried into shelters. Another meaning of evacuation is the emptying of something, whether a container or a human body. This relates to the word's original meaning, "discharge of blood from the body," from the Latin evacuare, "to empty."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

evacuation evacuations

He has travelled to Bejaia with the Algerian Health Minister Mohamed Seddik Ait Messaoudene to "assess" local firefighting and evacuation efforts, government officials said.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

With the State Department slow to initiate a full civilian evacuation, the military had only days to evacuate American citizens, Afghan allies and tens of thousands of others.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Officials issued evacuation orders for zones RVC-1060 and RVC-1059 shortly after 2 p.m., warning of “immediate threat to life.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

The evacuation area is bounded roughly by Orange Avenue to the north, Juniper Road to the west, Santa Rosa Mine Road and San Jacinto Avenue to the south and Old Elsinore Road to the east.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

Even many of those who were forced to relocate when evacuation orders were issued were unaware of what was going on at Fukushima Daiichi during the crisis.

From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has been heckled on a visit to the area of the country worst hit by wildfires, as blazes continue to cause further deaths and evacuations across Europe.

From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026

One Ukrainian unit says evacuations with ground drones can take anywhere from six hours to three days and involve 14 people in planning and execution.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

In the summer of 2016, the Soberanes fire burned more than 130,000 acres north of Big Sur, destroying dozens of homes and forcing evacuations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

The approaching storm has already triggered mass flight cancellations and evacuations along China's east coast ahead of its landfall and fuelled intense heat in the region.

From Barron's ● Aug. 9, 2026

He then decided to speed up the process by increasing the dosage to ten and fifteen and administering it three times in a single day, until it resulted in five large evacuations.

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy

Related Words

• departure
• exodus
• removal
• retreat