vacuum

The story

1. Classical Latin · derived fromvacuum“empty space”
2. New Latin · borrowed fromvacuum“vacuum”
3. English todayvacuum

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.