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cavernous

UK/ˈkav.ən.əs/US/ˈkæv.ɚ.nəs/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,357 of 15,258leans written

Cavernous means very large, hollow and echoing. A cavernous hall, cavernous space, a cavernous mouth.

The emptiness is essential — a big room full of furniture is not cavernous — and the word usually carries a chill. It suits halls, warehouses and eye sockets. The Latin caverna means a cave.

Definitions of cavernous

  1. 1adjectivecavernousVery large, hollow and echoing.C1

    “The old railway station has been turned into a cavernous art gallery.”

cavernous is a quality of space.

Where it comes from

Latin cavernosus comes from caverna, a cave, from cavus, hollow.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *ḱewh₁-

  2. Latin

    cavernōsus — full of hollows or cavities

  3. Old French

    caverneux

  4. Middle English

    cavernous

  5. English, today

    cavernous

Late Middle English cavernous, cavernose, borrowing from Old French caverneux or Latin cavernōsus (“full of hollows or cavities”), from caverna + -ōsus; equivalent to cavern + ous.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

cavernous in the wild

  • The cavernous sinus lies within the cranial cavity, between layers of the meninges, and is a major conduit of venous drainage from the brain.

    Danger triangle of the face

  • Each inferior petrosal sinus drains the cavernous sinus into the internal jugular vein.

    Inferior petrosal sinus

  • In the penis, there are both lesser cavernous nerves and a greater cavernous nerve.

    Cavernous nerves

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • cavern