Etymology

cavern

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Today it means: A large cave. Full definition →

Middle English caverne ← Old French caverne ← Latin caverna
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The story

  1. Latin · derived fromcaverna“hollow, cavity, cave”
  2. Old French · derived fromcaverne
  3. Middle English · inherited fromcaverne
  4. English todaycavern

From Middle English caverne, borrowing from Old French caverne, from Latin caverna (“hollow, cavity, cave”), from cavus (“hollow, excavated, concave”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.