Cavern comes from Old French caverne, from Late Latin caverna ('cave, cavity'), from Latin cavus ('hollow'). The historical trail runs through caverna in Latin and cavus in Latin. Used as a noun and verb, cavern now means "a large, often underground, chamber or cave", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in derived forms such as cavernous and caverned and related forms such as cave, cavity, and concave. The result is a borrowed or transmitted form whose modern spelling carries a compact record of its route into English.