vacation

noun

1. a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday: Schoolchildren are on vacation now.
2. a part of the year, regularly set aside, when normal activities of law courts, legislatures, etc., are suspended.
3. freedom or release from duty, business, or activity.
4. an act or instance of vacating.

verb (used without object)

5. to take or have a vacation: to vacation in the Caribbean.

noun

1. mainly British a period of the year when the law courts or universities are closed
2. mainly US and Canadian a period in which a break is taken from work or studies for rest, travel, or recreationAlso called (in Britain and certain other countries) holiday
3. the act of departing from or abandoning property, etc

verb

4. (intr) US and Canadian to take a vacation; holiday

n.

late 14c., “freedom from obligations, leisure, release” (from some activity or occupation), from Old French vacation, from Latin vacationem (nominative vacatio) “leisure, a being free from duty,” noun of state from past participle stem of vacare “be empty, free, or at leisure” (see vain).

Meanings “state of being unoccupied; process of vacating” are early 15c. Meaning “formal suspension of activity” (in reference to schools, courts, etc.) is recorded from mid-15c. As the U.S. equivalent of what in Britain is called a holiday, it is attested from 1878.

v.

1876, from vacation (n.). Related: Vacationed; vacationing.