lava

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian lava, at first a word of the Neapolitan dialect (Calabrian, according to Barnhart and Etymonline), where it meant a stream or torrent, especially one caused by a sudden downpour, and was then applied to the streams of molten rock from Vesuvius.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Florio's dictionary of 1611 glosses it "a streame or gutter suddainly caused by raine".^[2][6] Its source is disputed.^[3][4] The traditional explanation, given by the OED, the Shorter Oxford, Skeat, Weekley, Hoad and Collins, derives it from Italian lavare (“to wash”), from Latin lavō (“to wash”);^{[2][5][7][6][8][9]} Italian etymologists, followed by Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and Klein, derive it instead from Latin lābēs (“a fall, a sliding down”), related to lābor (“to slip, fall”),^{[3][10][11][12]} and Klein states that it has nothing to do with the verb for washing.^[12] The American Heritage Dictionary gives the second explanation with a "perhaps".^[13] From literary Italian the word spread to most European languages, including Spanish lava, German Lava and French lave.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stream of molten rock pouring from a volcano: 1750 in Barnhart and Etymonline,^[3][4] 1753 in the OED, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the first use to 1759.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The first English sense, "a lava stream", was soon given up (the OED's last example is from 1769) for the matter itself: the fluid rock flowing from a volcano (1760) and the rock it forms when it cools (1753).^[2] From 1773 a lava could also be a particular kind of this rock, or a bed of it.^[2] Twentieth-century compounds include lava lamp, recorded from 1965.^[4]

Timeline

• 1611 – Florio glosses Italian lava as a stream caused by rain.^[2]
• 1750 – lava, molten rock from a volcano.^[3][4]
• 1753 – a stream of molten rock; the rock formed when it cools.^[2]
• 1760 – the fluid matter flowing from a volcano.^[2]
• 1773 – a kind or bed of lava.^[2]
• 1965 – lava lamp.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Molten rock that flows out of a volcano or a fissure in the earth's surface: Lava poured down the side of the mountain.
2. The rock formed when this cools and hardens.

Related words

• lave
• lavatory
• lapse
• magma

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt