cave

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large natural hole in the side of a hill or under the ground.

   We found a cave on the mountainside where we could take shelter.

2. 2
   noun

   An underground room used for storing things, especially wine.

   This wine has been aged in our cave for thirty years.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Cave comes from Latin cavus, “hollow,” the root also found in cavern, cavity, and excavate. A separate 19th-century schoolchildren’s word cave, pronounced “kah-vay,” meant “beware!” and warned that a teacher was approaching.

From Middle English cave, borrowed from Old French cave, from Latin cava (“cavity”), from cavus (“hollow”). Cognate with Tocharian B kor (“throat”), Albanian cup (“odd, uneven”), Ancient Greek κύαρ (kúar, “eye of needle, earhole”), Old Armenian սոր (sor, “hole”), Sanskrit शून्य (śūnya, “empty, barren, zero”). Displaced native Old English sċræf. More at cavum, cavus and cage.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary