overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

caravel.

A light, usually lateen-rigged sailing ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish for about 300 years from the 15th century, first for trade and later for voyages of exploration.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkæɹəvɛl/Received-Pronunciation/ˌkæɹəˈvɛl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkæɹəvɛl/General-American/ˈkɛ-/General-American
  1. A light, usually lateen-rigged sailing ship used by the Portuguese and Spanish for about 300 years from the 15th century, first for trade and later for voyages of exploration.

    historical
Where this word comes from

From Middle French caravelle, from Old French caruelle, carvelle (“caravel”), from Old Galician-Portuguese caravela (“caravel”), a diminutive of caravo, carabo (“type of small vessel”), from Late Latin carabus (“small wicker boat decked with hide”), from Ancient Greek κᾱ́ρᾰβος (kā́răbos, “type of light ship; kind of beetle, probably a longhorn beetle; kind of crustacean, probably a crayfish”).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

caravel has 7 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

caravel studiocaravel workshello, caravel

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.