cava

Forms

cava f (plural cave)^[1] Old spellings include Old Italian chava.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cava (“a hollow”), the feminine of the adjective cavus (“hollow”) used as a noun.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} GRADIT and Wiktionary place the noun in Late Latin, where it meant “ditch”;^[9][1] Wiktionary suggests that it arose when the plural of the neuter cavum (“hole”) was taken for a feminine singular.^[9][1]

The same noun is Old Occitan cava and Old French cave; the Iberian languages have a form with ⟨o⟩ instead, Catalan cova, Spanish cueva and Portuguese cova.^[10][11][4] Nocentini, with the LEI, explains these from a Latin variant coum, known only from the grammarians, and holds the ⟨o⟩ for the original vowel, since Ancient Greek κόοι (kóoi, “hollows”) and Old Irish cúa (“hollow”) have it too.^[4][12]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kawo- and Proto-Indo-European *ḱouH-ó- (“hollow”); with Vine he takes the change of /ou/ to /au/ to have happened only before the accent.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Sienese translation of Egidio Romano of 1288, in the sense “pit, ditch, a hole dug in the ground”.^[2] DELI's first record of the quarry, the open place where stone, sand or minerals are dug, is the Novellino at the end of the 13th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used cava for a grave, an irrigation ditch, an underground passage, a cave or animal's den, and the pits of hell: Dante looks dentro a quella cava (into that pit), one of the bolge.^[2][6][14] In 13th-century Venetian it was also a cellar, and Ariosto uses it for a wild beast's lair.^[10][14] The sense of a mine or quarry, and the place where the material is dug, is in the TLIO too.^[2]

Modern Italian keeps the quarry (cava di marmo, cava a cielo aperto), with a figurative una cava di, an inexhaustible supply of something, and technical senses for slots in electrical machines and keyways.^[9][5][6] Serbo-Croatian borrowed the word.^[1]

Timeline

• 1288 – The Sienese translation of Egidio Romano has cava “ditch”.^[2]
• Before 1292 – First record according to Zingarelli.^[15]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses it for a quarry.^[3]
• 1875 – Cava is recorded alone for the vena cava.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A quarry: an excavation from which stone, sand, peat or minerals are taken, open to the sky or in a gallery: cava di sabbia.^{[9][5][16][1]}
2. The place where such an excavation is made.^[9][17]
3. (archaic) A pit, ditch; a cave, den.^[9][5][6]
4. (figurative) An inexhaustible source, a mine of something: Quel libro è una cava di aneddoti.^[9][5][16]
5. (electrical engineering) A slot in the core of a rotating electrical machine that holds the windings.^[9][5][18]
6. (mechanics) A keyway, a groove cut to take a key.^[9]

Word family

• cavaiolo
• controcava

Related words

• cavo
• cavare
• Latin cavus

Usage notes

Cava is also short for vena cava, each of the two great veins that bring blood to the right atrium of the heart; it is the feminine of the adjective cavo, and the Latin vena cava translates Greek koílē phléps, the “hollow vein”.^[9][6][3] GRADIT also lists cava as a variant of kava, the Polynesian drink made from the root of Piper methysticum, which DEI dates to the 19th century.^[9][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 823
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 13, 682
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
18. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana