Etymologically
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cavity

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈkæv.ɪt.i/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French cavité,[2][3][4] from Late Latin cavitās (“hollowness”),[2][5][3][6] from cavus (“hollow”),[5][6][7] from Proto-Indo-European *keue- (“to swell; vault, hole”).[5] Hoad, the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford allow a borrowing straight from Late Latin as well.[7][8][9] The French word is recorded in the 13th century,[5] then as Old French caveté.[10] The OED thinks the Latin form was probably formed only in late Latin or in Romance,[10] and Weekley compares Italian cavità and Spanish cavidad.[11][10] It is related to cave.[2][12][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hollow place; an empty space within a solid body: probably 1541, in Copland's translation of Galen's Terapeutyke.[10][2][3] Dictionary.com dates it to 1535–45.[4]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as "hollowness; hollow; hollow place", quoting Holder on the cavity of the mouth in speech.[13] The OED also records the sense "hollowness", rare and now obsolete, from before 1680.[10] Etymonline glosses the word as a hollow place or an empty space in the body.[5] In naval architecture it was the space displaced in the water by the hull of a ship (1805), and since 1910 a wall with a hollow space inside, a cavity wall.[10] The Shorter Oxford gives the special sense of a hollow in a decayed tooth.[9]

Timeline

  • 1541 – a hollow place, a space within a solid body.[10][2][3]
  • before 1680 – hollowness (obsolete).[10]
  • 1805 – in naval architecture, the space displaced by a ship's hull.[10]
  • 1910 – a double wall with a hollow space inside.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hollow space within a solid object or mass: a cavity in the rock.[14][3][10]
  2. A hollow in a tooth caused by decay: The dentist found two cavities.[14][3][9]
  3. A hollow space within the body, such as the abdominal or nasal cavity.[14][9]
  4. (obsolete) Hollowness (before 1680).[10][13]

Word family

  • cavitied
  • anticavity
  • cavitation
  • subcavity
  • cavity wall
  • pulp cavity
  • cavity resonator
  • cave
  • concave
  • cavitary
  • cavitate
  • excavate
  • excavation
  • excavator
  • cavern

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins