Meaning

noun the absence of matter

noun an empty area or space

noun a region that is devoid of matter

originBorrowed 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0