cavern

A large cave.

Noun

  1. A large cave.
  2. An underground chamber.
    • In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea. - 1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision...
  3. A large, dark place or space.
    • a dark cavern of a shop

Origin

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

Forms

caverns

Derived

cavernful cavernicolous cavernitis cavernlike cavernoma cavernous incaverned mesocavern

Verb

  1. To form a cavern or deep depression in.
    • catacombs caverning the hillsides

    Synonyms: hollow cave

  2. To put into a cavern.

Forms

caverns caverning caverned