Also 4 kaave, 4–5 kave. [a. F. cave:—L. cava, pl. of cavum a hollow (place), neuter of cavus hollow.]
1. A hollow place opening more or less horizontally under the ground; a cavern, den, habitation in the earth.
c. 1220. Bestiary, 251. Caue ȝe [the ant] haueð to crepen in.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 2915. In a caue he [Lot] hid him þare And his dohutris. Ibid. (c. 1340), 12341 (Trin.). To þe leones caue [Cott., Gött. coue] he ȝode.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 25. Þat litel child listely lorked out of his caue.
c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., 2307. And to a kaave pryvyly hym spedde.
1494. Fabyan, IV. lxxv. 52. The Picts and Scottes beganne to breke out of theyr Dennes and Caues.
1535. Coverdale, 1 Sam. xxii. 1. Dauid … fled vnto the caue of Adullam.
1560. Jewell, Serm. Paul’s Cross, A iv. The Temple … was become a cave of theues.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 454. A murmuring sound Of waters issu’d from a Cave.
1823. W. Buckland, Reliq. Diluv., 5. Caves in limestone are usually connected with fissures of the rock.
b. Idols of the Cave (idola specus): see IDOL.
† 2. gen. A hollow place of any kind, a cavity.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. v. § 3. Are not the Organs of the sences of one kinde with the Organs of Reflexion … the Eare with a Caue or Straight determined and bounded?
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 172. Some creep into the caves of hollow trees.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 272. The Caue of the Eare doth hold off the Sound a little from the Organ. Ibid., § 282. So is the Eare a sinuous Caue.
3. Glass-making. The ash-pit of a glass-furnace.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, II. 656. The furnace is thrown over an ash-pit, or cave as it is called.
4. Political slang. The secession of a small body of politicians from their party on some special question; the malcontent body so seceding: suggested by Mr. Bright’s use of ‘cave of Adullam’ in reference to the secession from the Liberal party in 1866; see ADULLAMITE.
1866. Bright, Sp. (1876), 349. The right hon. gentleman … has retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam, and he has called about him ‘every one that was in distress and every one that was discontented.’
1884. Daily News, 19 Feb., 4/6. There is no expectation of what Mr. Bright has taught all English politicians to call a ‘cave.’
1887. Standard, 30 March, 5/7. There are rumours of an Anti-coercion Cave in the Conservative ranks.
1887. Sir W. Harcourt, in Daily News, 21 Oct., 6/2. They [the Dissentient Liberals] are a cave, as it used to be called, and the danger of a cave was long ago pointed out that all the footsteps led into the cave, and none out of it.
5. attrib. and Comb., as cave-keeper; cave-guarded, -keeping, -like, -lodged, -loving adjs.; cave-breccia (Geol.), breccia deposited in caves; cave-deposit (Geol.), any geological formation deposited in caves; cave-dweller, one who dwells in a cave, a troglodyte; spec. applied to (a.) those races of prehistoric men who dwelt in natural caves; (b.) the Bohemian Brethren, a religious sect formed from the remains of the Hussites in the 15th c., so called because they hid in caves to escape persecution; cave-earth (Geol.), a layer of earth forming the old floor of a cave before the deposition of stalagmite; cave-fish, a (blind) fish inhabiting subterraneous streams or lakes in caves; cave-man = cave-dweller; cave-rat, a kind of rat that lives underground; cave-spider, the spider Segestria cellaris Latr.; cave-swallow, a West-Indian species of swallow (Hirundo pocciloma), which suspends its nest from the roofs of caves. Also in names of extinct animals whose remains are found in caves, as cave-bear, -hyena, -lion, -tiger.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 237–8. The remains of the *cave-bear are abundant in Central Europe.
1866. Laing, Preh. Rem. Caithn., 64. Men … contemporaries of the cave-bear and tiger.
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, 1. The occasional occurrence … of the bones of man … in *cave-breccias and stalactites.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 243. The animal was essentially a *cave-dweller.
1873. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, xxix. 411. This ancient deposit rests upon a second *cave-earth or breccia.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 244. To question … the value of what may be called *cave-evidence.
1871. Browning, Pr. Hohenst., 145. Found like those famed *cave-fish to lack eye And organ for the upper magnitudes.
1884. J. Gibson, in Longm. Mag., March, 527. The blind cave-fish being thus probably the descendants of species which once lived above ground.
1874. Dawkins (title), *Cave Hunting.
c. 1611. Shaks., Cymb., IV. ii. 298. I thought I was a *Caue-keeper. Ibid. (1593), Lucr., 1250. *Caue-keeping euils that obscurely sleepe.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxix. 380. This *cave-like abode.
c. 1630. Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, Wks. (1711), 33. *Cave-loving Eccho, daughter of the air.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, x. 255. These ancient *Cave-men.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., v. (1878), 110. One of the blind animals, namely, the *cave-rat.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 257. These *cave-researches appear to have been conducted with care.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., viii. 196. The Drift series of stone implements passes into the *Cave series.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. V. ii. 260. The *Cave Spider … is very common in France and Italy.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 238. The cave-hyæna, and *cave-tiger, are found associated with the Ursus spelæus in the caverns.
