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Evacuate vs Shelter - What's the difference?

evacuate | shelter |

As verbs the difference between evacuate and shelter

is that evacuate is to leave or withdraw from; to quit; to retire from; as, soldiers from a country, city, or fortress while shelter is to provide cover from damage or harassment; to shield; to protect.

As a noun shelter is

a refuge, haven or other cover or protection from something.

evacuate

English

Verb

(evacuat)
  • To leave or withdraw from; to quit; to retire from; as, soldiers from a country, city, or fortress.
    • The firefighters told us to evacuate the area as the flames approached.
  • * Burke
    • The Norwegians were forced to evacuate the country.
  • To make empty; to empty out; to remove the contents of, including to create a vacuum; as, to evacuate a vessel or dish.
    • The scientist evacuated the chamber before filling it with nitrogen.
  • (figurative) To make empty; to deprive.
  • * Coleridge
    • Evacuate the Scriptures of their most important meaning.
  • To remove; to eject; to void; to discharge, as the contents of a vessel, or of the bowels.
  • To make void; to nullify; to vacate.
    • to evacuate a contract or marriage
    (Francis Bacon)

    Related terms

    * evacuation (pos n)

    shelter

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A refuge, haven or other cover or protection from something.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1928, author=Lawrence R. Bourne
    • , title=Well Tackled! , chapter=7 citation , passage=The detective kept them in view. He made his way casually along the inside of the shelter until he reached an open scuttle close to where the two men were standing talking. Eavesdropping was not a thing Larard would have practised from choice, but there were times when, in the public interest, he had to do it, and this was one of them.}}
  • An institution that provides temporary housing for homeless people, battered women etc.

    • Derived terms

    * bus shelter

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To provide cover from damage or harassment; to shield; to protect.
  • * Dryden
    • Those ruins sheltered once his sacred head.
  • * Southey
    • You have no convents in which such persons may be received and sheltered .
  • To take cover.
    • During the rainstorm, we sheltered under a tree.