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lava.

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.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈlɑːvə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈlɑvə/US/ˈlɐːvə/Australia, New-Zealand/ˈlɑvə/Canada
  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.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A body of lava.

    countable
  3. Solidified lava.

    countable · dated · uncountable
  4. Magma.

    countable · informal · proscribed · uncountable
  5. A shade of red, named after the volcanic lava.

    countable · uncountable
  6. Hot water.

    colloquial · countable · figuratively · uncountable
Where this word comes 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.

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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.