Caver

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who explores underground caves as a hobby or profession
2. Someone engaged in the activity of traveling through natural cave systems
3. An individual who explores and investigates caverns and subterranean passages

Etymology: The word is simply "cave" with the agent suffix "-er," meaning one who does a thing. "Cave" came into English through Old French "cave" from Latin "cava," a hollow, and it reached Middle English in that sense of an underground hollow. The noun "caver" is built by attaching "-er" to it, and that suffix has its own long lineage: it descends from a Latin ending "-arius," which passed through Old French "-ier" and entered English as "-er." The suffix's ancestry is the more surprising part. The Latin "-arius" was itself an extension used to make words for people connected with a trade or activity, and the same ending that gives us "caver" also gives us "butcher" and "baker." Old English already had its own "-ere" form of the agent ending, so English speakers had a ready-made tool for naming people by their occupation. "Caver" follows the same pattern as "diver" or "climber," naming someone who goes into a particular environment. Its most natural reading is a person who explores caves, which is the sense the word carries today.

Synonyms: spelunker