Etymograph

English

cavitary

Cavitary comes from Latin cavitas ‘cavity’, from cavus ‘hollow, excavated, concave’, and perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- ‘to swell’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱewh₁-1‘to swell’uncertain
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱowh₁ós1uncertain
  3. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*kawos1reconstructed
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcavus2‘hollow, excavated, concave’
  5. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcavitas3‘cavity’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 2010cavitary3

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin cavus
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Latin cavitas
  3. 3 Wiktionary, English cavitary
  4. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2010, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of all Maladies: “With that sentence, Orman entered the unfamiliar world of…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱewh₁-Wiktionary, Latin cavus‘to swell’uncertain
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱowh₁ósWiktionary, Latin cavusuncertain
  3. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*kawosWiktionary, Latin cavusreconstructed
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcavusWiktionary, Latin cavitas‘hollow, excavated, concave’
  5. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcavitasWiktionary, English cavitary‘cavity’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 2010cavitaryWiktionary, English cavitary. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2010, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of all Maladies: “With that sentence, Orman entered the unfamiliar world of…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- ‘to swell’

church, kirk, hound, cyst, cumulus, cajole, 37 more

through Proto-Indo-European *ḱowh₁ós

cavernous, 12 more

through Proto-Italic *kawos

cavern, concave, jailer, 13 more

through Latin cavus ‘hollow, excavated, concave’

jail, cage, cave, excavation, gaol, excavate, caul, cavil, 16 more

Today it means

adj Of or pertaining to a (body) cavity.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “cavitary”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin cavus, Latin cavitas. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- / cavitary

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