cave
/keɪv/
"cave" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cave” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,108 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,108
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large, naturally-occurring cavity formed underground or in the face of a cliff or a hillside.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cave |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /keɪv/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,108 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cave” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cave is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /keɪv/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,108 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for cave, with forms such as "acve", "caev", and "cavve". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CE", "CV", "cue", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English cave, borrowed from Old French cave, from Latin cava (“cavity”), from cavus (“hollow”). Cognate with Tocharian B kor (“throat”), Albanian cup (“odd, uneven”), Ancient Greek κύαρ (kúar, “eye of needle, earhole”), Old Armenian սոր (sor, “h… The correct English form is cave, spelled C-A-V-E.
Definition
- 1A large, naturally-occurring cavity formed underground or in the face of a cliff or a hillside.
- 2A hole, depression, or gap in earth or rock, whether natural or man-made.
- 3A storage cellar, especially for wine or cheese.
- 4A place of retreat, such as a man cave.
- 5A naturally-occurring cavity in bedrock which is large enough to be entered by an adult.
- 6A shielded area where nuclear experiments can be carried out.
- 7Debris, particularly broken rock, which falls into a drill hole and interferes with drilling.
- 8A collapse or cave-in.
- 9The vagina.
- 10A group that breaks from a larger political party or faction on a particular issue.
- 11Any hollow place, or part; a cavity.
- 12A code cave.
Etymology
From Middle English cave, borrowed from Old French cave, from Latin cava (“cavity”), from cavus (“hollow”). Cognate with Tocharian B kor (“throat”), Albanian cup (“odd, uneven”), Ancient Greek κύαρ (kúar, “eye of needle, earhole”), Old Armenian սոր (sor, “hole”), Sanskrit शून्य (śūnya, “empty, barren, zero”). Displaced native Old English sċræf. More at cavum, cavus and cage.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acve,caev,cavve,ccave,cvae
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cave - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cave”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-V-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /keɪv/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “CE” - see the side-by-side comparison. cave vs CE
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.