lava
/ˈlɑvə/noun
lava is spelled L-A-V-A: 4 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 5.4 times per million words in written English, the 10,680th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, lava means “The molten rock ejected by a volcano from a vent such as a crater or fissure; magma that has breached the surface of the earth” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lava is lavas.
How many letters and syllables are in lava?
| Letters | 4: L-A-V-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 5.4 times per million words; the 10,680th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is lava?
Lava appears 5.4 times per million words in written English, the 10,680th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce lava?
- UK /ˈlɑːvə/
- US /ˈlɑvə/
- Australia /ˈlɐːvə/
Lava has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-lava.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with lava
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: larva (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with lava?
6 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as lava from its last stressed vowel (/ɑvə/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: aval.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of lava
- lavas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lava mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The molten rock ejected by a volcano from a vent such as a crater or fissure; magma that has breached the surface of the earth.
- 2
A body of lava.
- 3
datedSolidified lava.
- 4
informalproscribedMagma.
- 5
A shade of red, named after the volcanic lava.
- 6
colloquialHot water.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lava in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense molten rock:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does lava come from?
From Italian, from Neapolitan and Sicilian lava (“lava; downpour overflowing the streets”), likely from Latin lābēs (“a fall; a collapse; subsidence”); compare lābīna (“landslide”). A supposed relation with lavare (“to wash”) is now widely discredited, nor is there probably any relation with Arabic لابة (lāba, “black volcanic rock”). Alternatively, the Romance words are connected with Provençal lavo, lauvo (“flat stone”), from a Vulgar Latin source borrowed from a Celtic language such as Gaulish *lawā, but ultimately of obscure origin; see Proto-Celtic *līwos for details.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).