Other forms: caverns
A cavern is a large cave. A deep cavern, explore the cavern, the cavern opened out.
Most are dissolved out of limestone by slightly acid rainwater over hundreds of thousands of years, which is why cave country and limestone country are the same map. The largest known chamber could hold several aircraft. The Latin cavus means hollow.
1nouncavernA large cave.
“The explorers lit their torches and stepped into the huge underground cavern.”
cavern is a cave.
Latin caverna means a hollow or cave, from cavus, hollow. Cave and cavity are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱewh₁-
Latin
caverna — hollow, cavity, cave
Old French
caverne
Middle English
caverne
English, today
cavern
Built from
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