One for the holidays. An interesting word in comparison to "vacate" because I would’ve expected that "vacation" originally meant "act of leaving (a place) empty," which would’ve eventually led to the meaning "leisure time away from one’s residence." It turns out that both meanings were embodied by Latin vacare, and that the two words express different concepts because they were imported at different times.

vacate - 1643, from L. vacatum, pp. of vacare "to be empty."
vacation - c.1395, from O.Fr. vacation, from L. vacationem (nom. vacatio) "leisure," from vacare "be empty, free, or at leisure."

(from Etymology Online)

The PIE root is *eu[sub]3[/sub]- "to leave, abandon, give out" and underlies many other words related to emptiness, shallowness or lacking, such as wane, wanton, vain, vanity, vaunt, evanesce, vanish, vacant, vacuum, void, devoid, evacuate, waste, devastate and of course want.

Thanks, Salsamore!

Very interesting!

VACUNA

Sitran

¡Qué interesante! I definitely would’ve thought vaccine belonged in that list. But then where the heck did vacca/vaccinus come from?

vaccine (vac·cine) (vak-s[emacr]n’) [L. vaccinus pertaining to cows, from vacca cow (so named from the use of cowpox virus inoculation for immunization against smallpox)]  a suspension of attenuated or killed microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, or rickettsiae), or of antigenic proteins derived from them, administered for the prevention, amelioration, or treatment of infectious diseases.

From Dorland’s Medical Dictionary

-Tim

I specifically remember one of my Spanish teachers telling the class that ‘vaca’ and ‘vacation’ were related, but that is obviously false.

"Trust, but verify!"  Who said that?

PIE root "wak" - ‘vaca’ (Sp.) "cow"

PIE root "eu(2)"- ‘vacation’  "lacking, empty"

Wow!  

Sitran