English

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Etymology

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Back-formation from vacuum cleaner.[1]

Verb

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vacuum-clean (third-person singular simple present vacuum-cleans, present participle vacuum-cleaning, simple past and past participle vacuum-cleaned)

  1. To clean with a vacuum cleaner.

Synonyms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ Naděžda Stašková (2013) “English back-formation in the literature”, in English Back-Formation: Recent Trends in Usage: A Comprehensive Study of English Back-Formation in the 20th and the Early 21st Century[1], Plzeň: Západočeská univerzita v Plzni, →ISBN, page 25:
    BF [Back-formation] (of the type vacuum cleaner > [to] vacuum-clean) is less obvious, but it is a diachronical phenomenon, too, even if it is highly productive and produces semantically predictable results. As soon as a verb of the type [to] vacuum-clean is formally derived by BF, it becomes semantically primary; thus, vacuum cleaner means ‘appliance designed to vacuum-clean with’; therefore, viewed synchronically, it is derived from the verb [to] vacuum-clean.