Also 4–7 cauerne, 5–6 kauerne. [a. F. caverne cave, ad. L. caverna cave, den, cavity, f. cav-us hollow: see -ERN..]
1. A hollow place under ground; a subterranean (or submarine) cavity; a cave.
The Fr. caverne is the exact equivalent of Eng. cave; F. cave is a subterranean hollow generally, a cellar, etc. In Eng., cave is the ordinary commonplace term, cavern is vaguer and more rhetorical, usually with associations of vastness, or indefiniteness of extent or limits.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., III. ix. 82. Þe crikes and be cauernes of þe see yhidd in þe floodes.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIV. lvi. (1495), 487. In cauernes myes and crepynge wormes make theyr dennes and nestes.
1430. Lydg., Chron. Troy, IV. xxxi. In rochys harde, and in kauernes lowe.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., II. i. 80. Where wilt thou [conspiracie] finde a Cauerne darke enough To maske thy monstrous Visage?
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 268. In hollow Caverns Vermine make abode.
1752. Johnson, Rambl., No. 33, ¶ 5. I will teach you to … bring out from the caverns of the mountains metals.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 23. Mountains of the earth, the caverns of the ocean.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, I. 293. A spacious cavern, hewn amid The entrails of the earth.
1815. Moore, Lalla R., viii. Terrific caverns gave Dark welcome to each stormy wave.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch., I. xv. 300. Vast caverns open in the mountain side.
† 2. Applied to the cavity of the ear, the frontal sinus, etc.; also to interstices between particles. Obs.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 263. The cauerne and structure of the Eare.
1729. Shelvocke, Artillery, II. 108. Being reduced to a fine Meal, it [Gunpowder] loses all its little Caverns or Pores.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 463. The small spungy bones of the upper jaw, the caverns of the forehead.
3. attrib. and Comb., as cavern-door, -house, -pagoda, -temple, -well; cavernhold, nonce-wd. after household; cavern-limestone, ‘the carboniferous limestone of Kentucky, so called from the innumerable caves which its hard strata contain’ (Bartlett); cavern-like a.
1832. De la Beche, Geol. Man., 181. The theoretical conclusions that have been deduced from *cavern bones.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IX. 22. [They] croud the *cavern-door.
1791. Cowper, Odyss., IX. 434. Like whelps against his *cavern-floor he dashed them.
1873. M. Collins, Miranda, I. 185. The various rude household or *cavernhold implements which the Troglodyte had used.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls. (1872), I. 30. A *cavern-like gloom.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, xvi. Wks. (Bohn), II. 123. The gates of the old *cavern temples.
